Dom Parsons produced the performance of his career to claim Britain’s first medal at these Winter Olympics with a nerve-shredding bronze in the men’s skeleton. But his achievement was immediately called into question with claims that Team GB’s massive budget for technological innovation was “killing the sport”.

The 30-year-old PhD student, a 100-1 outsider before the Guardian revealed Team GB had come to these Games with a significant edge, feared his chance had gone when he bumped into a wall early into his final run.

Yet as Parsons scrunched his face in pained anguish, the Latvian Martins Dukurs – a five-time world champion and widely considered one of the greatest sliders in history – smashed into a wall halfway down his final run and slipped from second to fourth, behind the Briton by only 0.11sec.

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“That was a bit of a rollercoaster and it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Parsons. “I thought I’d lost it after that fourth run. It felt like it’d had gone – I thought I’d binned it. I came out a little bit too far right from corner nine, had a little clip on the right wall before 12, and that changes the pattern quite drastically. And then a little clip on the left wall before 14.

“But Dukurs has made some more mistakes and he’s the last person I’d expect that from. He’s been dominant for so many years. It’s just those little hundredths making a difference – it’s so close at the top.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dom Parsons competes in heat one of the men’s skeleton event at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Photograph: Aflo/REX/Shutterstock

But while Parsons celebrated, Dukurs’ coach Zintis Ekmanis said he expressed his doubts about how Parsons had gone from being ranked 12th in the world to an Olympic podium. “The technical stuff at the last moment changed things for Great Britain,” said Ekmanis. “It made a difference.

“You see that the GB’s rider’s start was less than our guys, and in general his driver skills are less than us. But it is the job of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation officials to rule on it but I am sorry but they are weak.”

Much of the focus in the buildup to the event has been Team GB’s aerodynamic suits, which work by disrupting the flow of air around the rider and the resistance acting on the body.

However Ekmanis appeared to claim Team GB may also have had a technological edge when it came to their helmets, sleds and runners too. “It is unfair,” he added. “It is killing the sport. Being good at skeleton used to be a third about the start, a third about driving skills, and a third technology. Now it’s half about technology.” The Guardian has heard similar sentiments expressed by other coaches who are yet to speak publicly.

Parsons, however, insisted the whole issue had been “blown out of proportion”. However, intriguingly, he did admit that “there are those little margins and innovations, and those are the things we work for with Kristan Bromley [his coach] and the programme works for with their technology.”

Afterwards Parsons admitted he was “as nervous as I have ever been” before his final run. And that apprehension was shared by Team GB insiders. The runners on his sled work best when the ice temperature is at minus 8c or below, and the performance gain they offer becomes a disadvantage when the ice is minus 4c or warmer.

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Some of those fears abated when the temperatures did not rise as steeply as predicted. But Parsons could still feel his heart thumping through his chest before his final run. It showed too with the several mistakes he made – only for Dukurs to hand him a reprieve at the death.

Parsons also revealed that he had managed to win a bronze despite a secret injury in training that clearly affected his start. “A couple of weeks ago I pulled my adductor so that made it difficult,” he explained.

“I only actually tried a maximum effort on the last day of training to confirm I could push flat-out without causing more pain.”

“But this is incredible,” he added. “Four years of work has gone into this, right from after Sochi I started working with Kristan and this has been the goal from that point. Sometimes it seemed like it wasn’t that close in coming, and it’s just amazing that it’s all come together.”

Sungbin Yun won South Korea’s second gold of the Games with a dominant performance, beating the field by 1.63sec – helped, in part, by British coach Richard Bromley, who is also a famed sled maker. Nikita Tregubov, an Olympic Athlete from Russia, took silver, 0.02sec ahead of Parsons.