Once being disappointed that an Australian had not won a Winter Olympics gold medal would have seemed as absurd as being shattered the Socceroos had not won the World Cup.

But when Australian world champion Britteny Cox finished fifth in the women's moguls — still, let it be said, an amazing result in a highly competitive event — there was a palpable sense of anticlimax.

This was partly due to Cox's stellar performances throughout the preceding season which had inspired the reasonable expectation she could become Australia's sixth Winter Olympic gold medallist.

Instead a little wobble in the air discernible only to the moguls-savvy observer was the difference between a winner's grin and a rueful smile from Cox, who had flown down the track faster than any of the six finalists.

''I went for it, I went big and skied fast,'' said Cox who had been determined to unleash a death or glory run that would provide the lifelong consolation of knowing she had not left a winning effort in the lodge.

Thus Cox let no-one down including herself.

The feeling of anticlimax was more a result of the enormous expectations raised by the broadcaster, Network Seven, which spent the elongated prime-time lead-up promoting the possibility of a Cox gold medal with the enthusiasm usually reserved for the new season of a reality cooking show.

The manner in which potential "Aussie glory" is being packaged and promoted at an event where competitive Australian performances — let alone gold medals — were once a delightfully unexpected treat has in turn altered the zeitgeist around Australia's Winter Olympic competitors and the Games themselves.

Due to the brilliantly counterintuitive performances of various Winter Olympians, Australia has made the gradual progression from endearing flat country curiosity without a snowball's chance — or, for that matter, many snowballs — to consistent threat in a handful of mostly non-traditional events, particularly aerial skiing.

Now, inevitably, the notion of Australia as a bona fide Winter Olympic competitor has not merely informed but overwhelmed the Seven coverage which contains active traces of the kind of hyperbolic jingoism long prevalent at the warm weather Olympics and — even more so — the Commonwealth Games.

Much has been made of the appearance of the North Korean cheerleaders who appeared at a women's ice hockey game wearing red jumpsuits and performing bizarre synchronised routines while chanting ''Win, win, our athletes win!'' and ''Unify the motherland! (The final score was Switzerland 8, Korea 0. Or, for those viewing in Pyongyang, Korea 134, Switzerland 0.)

But they have nothing on the cheerleaders in the Seven commentary team whose assessment of the many judged events, including the moguls, seems based as much on a competitor's passport as her performance.

The possibility of a Cox gold medal was promoted with the enthusiasm usually reserved for a reality cooking show. ( Reuters: Paul Hann )

This does not detract from the excellent efforts of the Australian athletes who, more than most, battle the dual disadvantage of financial hardship and geographic dislocation. (Let it not be assumed everyone who competes in a Winter Olympic sport was born with a pair of golden ski poles in their hands).

But so heavily is Seven leaning on pre-produced packages of athletes back stories to tug the heartstrings and create melodrama you could be forgiven for thinking this was an episode of My Bobsled Team Rules, not an international sporting event.

Before Cox bounced down the course, we knew she had a dog called Doug who she misses even more than Vegemite while competing overseas, presumably the kind of triviality the producers believe essential to humanise an athlete unfamiliar to a large proportion of the viewing audience.

This more Australia-centric and deadly earnest blanket coverage has to some extent taken the fun out of the Winter Olympics for those for whom moguls are usually people who own yachts and avoid taxes.

Sadly, this means the Winter Olympics will never again be presented as a bunch of quirky sports to which you formed a brief but fond attachment.

Thus curling jokes are now about as amusing as your boring uncle's version of Monty Python's Parrot Shop Sketch and we've milked all the laughs out of the skeleton and the luge.

The celebrated Jamaican bobsledders and the legendary Eddie the Eagle for a time made the idea of overmatched battlers from unlikely locations defying the odds a wonderful Winter Olympics staple.

But the movie versions and inevitable impersonators have made the plucky — underdog stories such a Winter Olympics stereotype that the appearance in Pyeongchang of the Nigerian women's bobsled team — direct from Texas and speaking in broad American accents — seem opportunistic, at best.

When teenage American snowboarder Red Gerard wins the snowboarding gold medal, you are no longer surprised that he talks like the kids at the local skate park about how everything is "awesome", "totally cool" and that his mental preparation for an Olympic final was to "not to take anything too seriously man and just have fun".

We've now seen enough snowboarding to know these kids are just surfers out of water.

Despite the blanket coverage — or perhaps because of it — the Winter Olympics isn't as carefree, fun and endearing as it once was for Australians.

It now comes with all the deadly earnestness of other serious sporting events and all that entails.

Being so disappointed an Australian did not win a Winter Olympics gold medal said much about the brilliant talent of Britteny Cox.

It was also the final sign we are no longer naive, wide-eyed innocents in the snow.