Elise Christie confirms recovery from ankle injury and will compete in 1000m

Elise Christie has confirmed she will have one last crack at winning an Olympic medal after winning her battle to recover from an ankle injury suffered during her dramatic crash at the weekend.

Christie suffered soft tissue damage to her ankle when tumbling out of the short track speed skating 1500m semi-finals on Saturday night, which continued the miserable run that has seen her crash out or be disqualified from five races across the last two Olympics.

She was stretchered off the track and taken to hospital immediately, but returned to the ice for the first time when successfully making it through a light skating session on Monday afternoon.

She then took part in training on Tuesday morning and passed a more rigorous fitness test, before confirming she will compete in this evening’s 1000m heats.

“I’m just about to leave to go down to the ice rink to go and try and compete today,” she said in a video posted on social media on Tuesday afternoon.

“I skated this morning for the first time and it went quite well considering the circumstances so I’m looking forward to seeing if I can get out there to race today.”

Should Christie qualify, she then has a further two days to recover before the later rounds and final on Thursday.

Speaking before Christie confirmed the news, Mike Hay, Team GB chef de mission, said he was not concerned about any mental scars caused by her Olympic hex continuing from Sochi 2014 to Pyeongchang.

“I’m not really concerned about that,” he said. “She is a different athlete from what she was four years ago.

“You don’t become a double world champion in between times without some resilience.

“She’s got one chance to go and she’s desperate.”

Having previously said she was planning on taking time away from social media to focus on her preparations for her final race at these Olympics, Christie has been more active on Twitter in recent days since picking up the injury.

She has chosen to respond to a number of people who have questioned her mental fortitude, but Hay insisted he would not force athletes to be silent although they "should be focusing" on the Olympics.

“We do have a lot of interaction with athletes long before we get to Games. What we don’t do is gag our athletes,” he said.

“We give them some of the warnings about social media and then it is up to them what they do.

“It’s up to them to handle it. They know the risks if they want to go and engage with people when they should be focusing here.”