Chemmy Alcott's decision to go for broke paid off handsomely as she recorded Britain's best Olympic alpine result in 18 years at Sestriere Fraiteve yesterday.

The 23-year-old from Twickenham said she was ''shocked and surprised'' by her 11th-place finish behind women's downhill winner Michaela Dorfmeister of Austria.

It was Britain's best result on snow since Martin Bell's eighth-place finish in Calgary in 1988 and the best by a woman since Gina Hathorn finished fourth in the Grenoble slalom of 1968.

Alcott said: ''My coach gave me a choice to be either fast or scared - I chose to be fast, even though my skiing was a bit messy.

''I was a bit wobbly because the course is so tough to ski. But now I am very positive for the super-g.''

From a start gate of 14, Alcott looked confident and composed on a course which had seen a series of high-profile crashes during training runs.

She completed the course in one minute 57.85 seconds, temporarily securing second place on the leaderboard behind Frenchwoman Marie Marchand-Arvier.

Alcott's best World Cup downhill result was 25th at Lake Louise last December and she had barely troubled the top racers since her ninth place in Cortina D'Ampezzo in January 2004.

David Murdoch's curlers suffered their first setback of the Olympic competition as they were well beaten by favourites Canada at Pinerolo. Having started the round-robin stage with two straight wins, Great Britain never looked in with a shout against the world champions, who won 9-5 with an end to spare.

Rhona Martin's women went the same way as the men as they tasted their first defeat of the competition, 8-6 against favourites Sweden. A number of early mistakes gifted the Swedes a 5-0 advantage after just three ends and despite a gritty comeback, Martin never looked likely to win.

Martin admitted: ''What caused it was the second and third ends because you can't go 5-0 down to the European and world champions."