What could have been a magic Monday for Team GB ended rather muted.
It started with an agonising fourth-place finish for skier Kirsty Muir in the slopestyle final, and finished the same for Mia Brookes in the snowboard big air - sandwiching a missed opportunity for a guaranteed curling medal for Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds in the mixed doubles.
But it was so close to glory for Brookes, a backside 1620 trick - featuring four and a half rotations - landed before she over-rotated and her heel edge caught in the snow.
"That was a gold," said Ed Leigh on BBC Sport commentary.
"She so nearly held on to it. It would have been a world first in competition."
Instead, the 19-year-old finished just off the podium with a combined score of 159.50 from her opening two runs.
Japan's world champion Kokomo Murase won her maiden Olympic gold with 179 points, with New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski Synnott and South Korean Yu Seungeun taking silver and bronze.
"It was insane. Obviously I'm bummed I couldn't land that last trick," Brookes told BBC Sport, later revealing it was the first time she had attempted it on snow.
"I had too much spin on it, which I didn't think I would. Maybe I should have done an 1800 instead!"
Brookes is one of the biggest names in her sport and, despite her tender age, already has a medal collection that most would be jealous of.
In 2023, she became the sport's youngest senior world champion with slopestyle gold in Georgia, a victory sealed by landing the first Cab 1440 double grab in a women's event.
She has since become a two-time gold medallist at the X Games, an invitation-only event widely seen as the holy grail of action sports.
There are few athletes - if any - among Team GB's ranks who have cut a more chilled out figure than Brookes at these Games so far.
An Olympic medal is not something she has ever "craved", but the magnitude of this global event has perhaps hit home and she is "pretty excited" for another shot at a medal in the slopestyle, which starts with qualifying on 16 February.
"I'm hyped for it, everything good can come from it. I'm in a good headspace and ready to to do slopestyle."
Curlers spurn chance to secure GB's first medal
Earlier, Dodds and Mouat spurned the chance to guarantee Team GB's first medal of the 2026 Winter Olympics - and stirred up bad memories of missing out four years ago - in a surprise 9-3 mixed doubles curling semi-final defeat by Sweden.
Victory would have assured the British pair - who were imperious in the round-robin stage and topped the standings - of at least silver in Cortina.
But they faltered at the wrong time, and instead will come back here on Tuesday (13:05 GMT) to face hosts and defending world and Olympic champions Italy for bronze - live on the BBC - needing victory to avoid the same fate they suffered in 2022.
"We're really gutted," Mouat told BBC Sport. "We've had such a good week and it was quite exciting for us to go into this game feeling the way we were.
"But to come out and not even play close to the way we wanted to is hard to put into words really. They were the better team today."
At the Beijing Games, Dodds and Mouat blew a semi-final lead against Norway before losing to the inspired Swedes in the bronze-medal match.
Both Scots had spoken in the build-up about using that as fuel this time but, although this was a different Swedish pair, the outcome was the same.
The British duo had seen off Rasmus and Isabella Wranaa with relative ease on Friday, but the siblings started strongly and just got stronger in a flawless display.
They restricted GB to one in a scrappy first end, taking two themselves in the second, and stealing another in the third.
Dodds and Mouat were just not quite at it, their shots not quite coming off and the margins going against them. The Swedes could not miss, but the GB pair did. Time and again. Not by much, but by enough.
The fourth end again only brought one, leaving them trailing 3-2 at the interval, but then Dodds - the best women's player here all week - belatedly found her touch.
The 34-year-old spied the chance to take out two Swedish stones. Mouat and coach Greg Drummond were wary. But Dodds was adamant she could execute. And she did.
The Swedes still had a chance to take one, but Isabella Wranaa erred for once and GB stole one to level the contest.
It turned out to be a brief flash of hope, though. Poor throws from both Dodds and Mouat left them chasing in the sixth end and their ruthless opponents took full advantage by taking five. It was a decisive moment.
Sweden were never likely to lose such a huge lead in the remaining two ends, and so it proved. The British pair, chasing a big score in the seventh, couldn't find a miracle, gave up one more point, and shook hands with an end to spare.
"We don't want this to affect our chances of a medal tomorrow so we'll speak about the things that need to be spoken about and corrected and we'll come out firing tomorrow," Dodds told BBC Sport.
Muir misses out on Olympic medal by 0.41 points
The British agony had started earlier on in the day when freestyle skier Muir missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins with her fourth-place finish in the women's slopestyle.
Muir scored 76.05 points with a brilliant third run, finishing only 0.41 behind Canadian bronze medallist Megan Oldham in Livigno.
Having fallen on the penultimate jump of her opening run, Muir - who had qualified third - sat in sixth after her second.
But despite a vastly improved performance on her final attempt, a crestfallen Muir was left wanting more on the biggest stage.
"I put it out there on every run," the 21-year-old told BBC Sport.
"I was so proud to put one down. I struggled to accept how close it was, but I know I've got more in me."
In a final that demonstrated the strength of women's freestyle skiing, Mathilde Gremaud successfully defended her Olympic title by only 0.38 points.
China's Eileen Gu - the world's fourth highest-paid female athlete in 2025 but arguably a bigger star off the slopes through her modelling and brand endorsements - took silver, but crashed on her final run to allow Gremaud a victory lap.
Gremaud soaked up her moment, a Switzerland flag tied around her neck and billowing in the wind as she floated down the course.
Muir is one of Team GB's best medal hopes at the Milan-Cortina Games, and has another shot at the podium when she competes in the big air starting on Saturday.
"I just need to have a moment to process. I don't want to dwell on it too much," she said.
"I've got at least a day or so until I hit the big air. I'm going to go through this, accept it and try and find the positives that I can from it, and then completely reset because the big air is just a completely different competition."
Winter Olympics 2026
6-22 February
Milan-Cortina
Watch two live streams and highlights on BBC iPlayer (UK only), updates on BBC Radio 5 Live and live text commentary and video highlights on the BBC Sport website and app.
Related topics
(Feed generated with FetchRSS)