The Team GB star crashed out of her two previous races in Pyeongchang and faced a race against time to have one last shot at glory in the 1,000m.

She shook off fitness concerns, having been carried off on a stretcher at the weekend, to take her place on the start line in the last-chance saloon.

But disaster struck for a third time when she went tumbling again just a few strides into the start of the first heat.

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The race was restarted and Christie finished second, a result which would have been enough to take her through to the next stage.

However, she was subsequently shown a yellow card for blocking an opponent’s path and thrown out of the competition in South Korea.

That ends her hopes of earning a medal in what an only be described as a nightmare few days for the Brit on the biggest stage of all.

A distraught Christie told the BBC: “To be honest, not much [is going through my mind.] A few days ago I didn’t think I’d be getting on the ice.

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“I did everything I could to change it around. I had ligament damage and putting skates on wasn’t comfortable. We did everything but it obviously wasn’t mean to to be.

“If it was another competition I wouldn’t have got on the ice. The only reason I was given a choice was because it’s the Olympics.

“I trained all my life for this. It was everything to me. It’s done. I don’t know, I felt I owed it to Britain. I want to get short track out there. It’s an amazing sport but sometimes it does this to you.”