By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport, Salt Lake City

One hurled a stone down a sheet of ice and the other threw herself down one head-first. The sum total of the efforts of Rhona Martin and Alex Coomber equated to Britain's most successful Winter Olympic Games for 66 years.

Four days after claiming "we're out, we're dead", Martin and her British curling team were sharing a Medals Plaza stage with world-famous singer Alanis Morissette, gold medals hanging around their necks.

Two members of the team of five were still at primary school when Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skated to Britain's last Winter Olympics gold in Sarajevo 18 years ago.

Six million people - including Martin's nine and six-year-old children - tuned into British television to watch the last stone drama.

"Rhona Martin has written herself into British sporting history today," said Britain's chef de mission Simon Clegg.

"It was just a routine draw," shrugged Martin.

"I'm still a mother of two, a housewife in a small Ayrshire village - and the children are going to be tired for school tomorrow."

Coomber's hopes were threatened by a blizzard on the Park City course on the morning of her skeleton competition, but she whizzed down the track into bronze behind two whooping Americans.

The 28-year-old's first thought was for her dog Fogarty, who had been plonked in front of the television in her Somerset home with a Union Jack tied around his neck.

Coomber, who toasted her victory with the British media in the less-than-quaint surroundings of the Dead Goat Saloon, had said: "Imagine your car driving at 80mph around the M25 and you're lying on a skateboard tied to the back of it."

Coomber's bronze was too much for Clegg, coming as it did at the same time as the curlers' upset win over Canada which guaranteed them at least a silver medal.

He burst into tears, his apparently audacious claim of Britain's best Games since the Second World War vindicated in two crazy minutes.

It had not been the best of starts, though, to put it mildly.

Hammy McMillan's fancied men's curlers had a bad start, followed by a bad middle and a bad end.

The two women's moguls skiers came second last and dead last.

Lesley McKenna crashed twice during the snowboard half-pipe competition, and another medal chance went up in smoke.

All Britain could trumpet was Mark Hatton's modest 25th place in the luge.

The International Skating Union's controversial decision to reward Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale with a retrospective gold medal after allegations of judging improprieties among the figure-skating judges caused a storm.

The Russians, who thought their pair - Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya - should have kept the title on their own, were furious at the ISU's apparently hasty decision under pressure from the International Olympic Committee.

ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta was "embarrassed" by the saga, in which he claimed French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne had been pressurised into voting for the Russians in return for a favour for the French in the ice-dancing competition.

His answer was another gold to keep everybody happy - and a new scoring system which nobody could understand.

No sooner had the precedent been set than others tried their luck.

The Russians protested against the result of the women's free skating, claiming Irina Slutskaya had something to moan about for being placed second behind America's Sarah Hughes - when clearly she did not.

The Russians, their rage mounting, claimed they would pull out of the Games and at one stage out of the Olympic movement completely unless IOC president Jacques Rogge wrote to president Vladimir Putin and addressed their concerns.

South Korea had a better case after their short-track speedskater Kim Dong-Sung had gold taken from him in the men's 1500metres despite crossing the line first.

Kim was adjudged to have hindered the progress of American golden boy Apolo Anton Ohno, who got the gold instead.

Ohno had been a touch unfortunate in the men's 1000m, which produced one of the Games' highlights and the most surprising gold medallist in Olympic history.

Steven Bradbury skated round at the back of his quarter and semi-finals, each time progressing because of crashes. Well adrift in the final, he watched with disbelief as all four skaters in front of him went down on the final bend.

Bradbury glided past them all and secured Australia's first ever winter gold.

He said: "I don't know how it happened. I saw them on the ice and I thought this can't be right. I think I won."

But it was Ole Einar Bjoerndalen who was truly the star of the Games, winning three individual and one relay gold in the biathlon at Soldier Hollow.

Another Norwegian, Kjetil Andre Aamodt, won two golds and surpassed Alberto Tomba to become the most decorated men's alpine competitor in Games history.

Croatia's Janica Kostelic made history in the women's competition with four medals, including golds in the combined and the slalom.

At the other end of the scale, Salt Lake City opened its doors to some unlikely competitors.

A Cameroonian, a Costa Rican and a Kenyan did battle in the men's cross country. Fiji cheered on a downhill skier. Venezuela sent a four-strong luge team, and India just one, Shiva Keshavan.

"I went to the Indian Luge Association for support," said Keshavan, who started life as a luger on a wooden go-kart on his country's pot-holed asphalt roads.

"I don't know why there was an Indian Luge Association. We haven't had a luger for 50 years."

The Salt Lake Olympics went better than expected.

The security came with a smile, and all the transport ran on time. The greatest issue was the jingoism exhibited by many of the Americans out here, which regularly reached unacceptable levels.

But for Rhona, Debbie, Janice, Fiona, Maggie and Alex Salt Lake City 2002 could hardly have been any better.