Short track speed skaters built momentum for Team GB’s campaign for Olympic medals on the sport’s opening night in Vancouver.

Sarah Lindsay and Elise Christie have both advanced to the 500m quarter finals after finishing in second place in their heats on Saturday at the Pacific Coliseum.

Lindsay, 29, from Kingston, is competing in her third Winter Games and finished with a time of 44.716 seconds – just fractions of a second behind first place.

Elise, 19, who moved from Livingstone to Radford in Nottingham when she was 16-years-old to train at the National Ice Centre, finished with a competitive time of 44.374 seconds, even though she is best at distance races.

Elise, who is competing at the Olympics for the first time, will also be competing for the 1,500m title on Saturday 20 February.

The quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals of the women’s 500m are Wednesday night (17 February) at the Pacific Coliseum.

In the men’s 1500m, Jack Whelbourne, 18, from Ainsley Estate in Nottingham, finished third in his heat with a time of 2:14.972 and advance to the semi-finals. He went on to finish fifth in his semi-final heat with a time of 2:17.156, narrowly missing out on a place in the B Final.

Jack, who was competing in only his fifth major 1,500m competition, will be using experiences from his first Olympic event to prepare for the men’s 1,000m competition on Saturday (20 February) and the men’s 5,000m relay on Friday, 26 February.

Team mate Anthony Douglas, 24, from Gamston in Nottingham, narrowly missed advancing to the 1,500m semi-finals by placing fourth in his qualification heat with a time of 2:16.622.

He will join Jack in the men’s 5000m relay, along with team mates Jon Eley, 25, and Tom Iveson, 26, both from Solihull, Birmingham.

Keith Horton, chief executive of National Ice Skating Association (NISA), said: “The team are showing promise at an early stage in the competition.

“The skaters are looking strong and racing well and they are proving themselves against the best athletes from around the world, and we’re incredibly proud of them.”