It was Sir Winston Churchill who said: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” And having tweeted a photo of herself making a Churchillian V for victory pose on Monday, Elise Christie intends to take that advice to the letter.

Barring a late setback, Christie will defy the swelling in her right ankle – and her critics on social media who have branded her a choker – by trying again to end her Winter Olympics hoodoo in the short-track 1,000m heats on Tuesday.

The chance of such upbeat news from the British camp had looked slight on Saturday after the speed skater was carried off the track on and sent to hospital following a crash in the women’s 1500m semi-finals. However, Christie was back on the ice again on Monday after MRI scans showed her body was healing and – barring a late setback – she intends to put her ankle and reputation on the line again.

Britain’s chef de mission, Mike Hay, admitted he was “cautiously optimistic” that she would be passed fit by team doctors, adding: “Certainly, she is very keen to skate. We just need to make sure that medically everything is OK.”

Hay also bristled at suggestions made by some on social media that the 27-year from Livingston is mentally weak, having been disqualified three times in Sochi four years ago and crashed twice already in Pyeongchang. “That is a tiny minority,” he said. “I would say an awful lot of people have got a lot of goodwill for her. But in this world you’re going to get a few haters.

“We’ve seen a number of other Olympians tweeting things in her favour and she is not looking at the crap out there – she is looking at people who mean something to her.”

Hay also insisted that Christie had the fortitude to recover from her setbacks this time round. “She is a different athlete from what she was four years ago,” he said. “You don’t become a double world champion in between times without some resilience. She’s got one chance to go and she’s desperate. She has got what it takes, she just needs to get it right.”

Christie was back on social media on Monday, despite promising she would take a break during the Olympics. While there are concerns that she could be affected by the negative abuse – as she was in Sochi when she received thousands of hateful messages from South Koreans angry that she had crashed into one of their athletes – the British Olympic Association said it would not be advising a blackout.

However, Hay made it clear he did not think looking and engaging on Twitter was necessarily the best thing for Christie to be doing. “We do have a lot of interaction with athletes long before we get to Games,” he said. “What we don’t do is gag our athletes.

“We give them some of the warnings about social media and then it is up to them what they do. It’s up to them to handle it, they know the risks if they want to go and engage with people when they should be focusing here.”

However, he was keen to downplay Christie’s chances of a gold medal on Thursday if she gets through Tuesday’s heats.

“We have all the scans, so we know where we are,” he said. “But any time you’ve got an ankle injury and you’re putting that much pressure on it in a racing situation, it’s hard.”

Hay also strenuously denied that Christie would be pressurised into competing in a bid to hit the team’s medal target of five at these Olympics.

“The welfare of the athlete is more important than chasing any medal target that we have out there,” he said. “If you are suggesting that there is any pressure put on her to compete that is absolutely not the case. She needs to be fit or else she’s not going to be able to compete at the level that she wants to.”

Kyle Smith guides Great Britain to victory over Denmark in their men’s curling match-up on Monday. Photograph: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Elsewhere on day 10 Britain’s men and women curlers both came from behind to keep their hopes alive of making the semi-finals. The men beat Denmark 7-6, while the women overcame Switzerland 8-7 in another close battle. Both teams now have four wins and three losses, with two matches each to play.

GB women’s skip Eve Muirhead admitted afterwards that her team had been slightly fortunate. “It was a tough game,” she said. “Both teams played really well. It was a game of inches.”

In the men’s two-man bobsleigh, Canada and Germany tied for the gold medal while Latvia took bronze. Britain’s team of Brad Hall and Joel Fearon were twelfth, 0.43 seconds off the medals. “That is better than anything I’ve achieved at a World Cup so that has to be a positive,” said Hall.

There was also disappointment for Aimee Fuller as she missed out on a medal after falling twice. “It’s a shame my luck was in the practice and not when it counted,” she admitted before posting a picture of her very bruised face on Twitter. However Rowan Cheshire qualified for the ladies’ ski halfpipe final in ninth place.