Skeleton made just it's fourth Winter Olympic appearance at Torino 2006 (second for women) and Australia qualified one competitor in each event - Michelle Steele in the women's and Shaun Boyle in the men's.

19-year-old Steele from Bundaberg, finished 13th of 15 while 35-year-old Boyle from Wollongong was 22nd of 27 sliders, both a little disappointed not to finish a couple of places higher.

Swiss Maya Pedersen, who won the 2005 World Championship after returning to the sport following the birth of her daughter, was fastest on both runs in the women's event on 16 February (Day 6) and her aggregate time of 1:59.83 gave her a healthy 1.23 second margin over silver medallist Shelley Rudman of Great Britain.

Rudman was 4th after the first run but her second run lifted her past German Diana Sartor, who made a costly mistake early on her second run, and bronze medallist Melissa Hollingsworth-Richards of Canada.

Steele posted the 6th-best start time on her first run and the equal-12th-best run time of 1:01.26, but couldn't improve on her second run and clocked 1:02.21 (14th best) for a total of 2:03.47, just over two seconds out of the medals.

"I'm happy with it," she said. "The experience of being here tonight, I wouldn't trade it for anything."

The results of the men's event on 17 February (Day 7) were remarkable for a couple of reasons: all three medallists were aged 35 or over, and Canada came close to a medal sweep.

Duff Gibson became the oldest athlete to win a Winter Olympic gold medal after posting the fastest times on both runs. The 39-year-old fire fighter from Alberta clocked 57.80 and 58.08 seconds for a total of 1:55.88, 0.26 of a second better than 35-year-old compatriot Jeff Pain.

Swiss slider Gregor Staehli, who was 0.92 behind Gibson, became Olympic skeleton's first dual medallist, repeating his bronze-medal performance of Salt Lake 2002 with an aggregate time just 0.26 of a second ahead of the third Canadian contender, Paul Boehm.

Boyle just failed to break the one-minute mark, sliding to times of 1:00.13 and 1:00.00 precisely, and finished 4.25 seconds behind the winner and just 0.16 from a top-20 result.

With his family watching him compete for the first time, Boyle was satisfied with the conclusion to his five-year odyssey.

"I just thought 'let's just relax and have fun and give it your best shot' so I relaxed on most of the run and I had a much better run, so I'm happy," he said.

Murray Brust / AOC