It was fitting that the youngest member of the Irish Winter Olympics team carried the tricolour at last night’s lavish closing ceremony in Sochi.

The International Olympic Committee has stressed the incident at the Sanki Sliding Center which left a worker hospitalised was not due to a problem with the bobsleigh track.

Teenager Yulia Lipnitskaya stole the show as host nation Russia won their first gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, with their figure skating team triumphing in some style at the Iceberg Skating Palace.