The opening International Skating Union (ISU) World Cup event of the season offered to opportunity to race the 1,000m on both days, and Christie (pictured top), as the only skater to race both times over what is her best distance, took the opportunity to make an early impact on the rankings, winning a silver medal in her first race and narrowly missing a medal in the second after falling in the final stages.

"There have been some ups and downs," Christie said after the event.

"Because it's been the double 1,000m I've raced 10,000m in total this weekend, which has been really tough, but I'm pretty happy with how I've raced."

During the course of the event an unprecedented six world records were broken, making it the fastest ever World Cup event to date.

This has been attributed to the quality of the ice in Canada, which is known to be the fastest ice in the world.

Suk Hee Shim of South Korea, Elise Christie, Canada's Marie-Eve Drolet and Min-Jung Kim of South Korea compete during the 2012-2013 campaign opener in Calgary

Korea, Canada and China dominated the podium, winning ten, six and five medals respectively, closely followed by the United States and Russia, which both earned three podium positions.

Christie's silver medal put Britain joint in the medal table with Italy and Japan.

Despite not breaking the world record herself, Christie skated under the previous world record time prior to the event four times, consistently skating 1:28's during the course of the weekend.

Stuart Horsepool, performance director of GB Short Track, commented: "The standard of racing this weekend has been very high, and Elise has shown great self-belief in her racing.

"She has been very dominant and has actually been skating away from people, which is very difficult in the 1,000m.

"She has committed to each race, and whilst she was disappointed after her second final, she will be able to take a lot of confidence away from this weekend, in both her race strategies and her ability to cope with the high workloads of competition weekends."

The rest of the team struggled with the fast paced set on the Canadian ice.

Olivier Jean (C) of Canada leads Thibaut Fauconnet (R) of France and Jon Eley of Great Britain in the mens 1,000m heats

Jon Eley and Richard Shoebridge had top ten finishes in their events, but were disappointed not to reach an individual final.

In the men's relay, the team were on track to qualify for the final in the event they previously held the world record for, but in the closing stages of the heats, they fell while overtaking the Russians, who went on to win silver in the final.

Horsepool said: "It has been hard for the team this weekend and the results show how unpredictable short track can be.

"I think the unusual number of world records broken this weekend maybe affected their confidence, but they have another chance next weekend at round two of the World Cup."

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