By Judy Monchuk

CALGARY (CP) _ Olympic gold medallist Duff Gibson's plane was escorted back to the boarding gate by three crash rescue firetrucks flashing their lights on his welcome home Monday.

``All I could think was `Those are my guys,' '' said the 39-year-old skeleton champion, a Calgary firefighter whose station is based at the city's international airport. ``I was afraid that I was going to be a blubbering idiot, but so far I'm good.''

More than 100 people, many dressed in red and white and waving Canadian flags, were at the Calgary airport to greet Gibson and other members of the skeleton team following its run at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

Gibson said his Olympic championship run was his last in the sport. But he doesn't expect to be getting special treatment from his co-workers despite the warm homecoming.

``I'm junior man at the hall so my responsibility starts at toilets and goes up from there,'' he laughed amid a crush of reporters and fans as his gold medal sparkled in the light of television cameras. ``I think I'll be brought back down to Earth if my head's getting swollen at any point.''

A slightly bleary-eyed silver medallist Jeff Pain scooped up sons Thomas and Kyle, beaming after a sleepless night of excitement since Sunday's closing ceremonies.

Gibson and Pain's 1-2 finish has sparked a huge amount of interest in a rogue sport which more often generates squeamish responses from those who find the concept of sliding head-first down a track at break-neck speeds more kamikaze than sport.

``Skeleton is a great sport _ recreationally or at a high level,'' said Pain, 35, who was the World Cup champion heading into the Olympics. ``I certainly hope the momentum continues and we can grow our numbers so we can look forward to Vancouver and do well there, too.''

Those Olympic dreams were dancing in the eyes of six-year-old Holly Lafaivre, who says she's ready to try skeleton.

``It looks like fun when Duff does it,'' she said with a giggle. ``I want to go head-first.

``It makes it go faster and I want to win medals.''

That's good news to Mellissa Hollingsworth-Richards of Eckville, Alta., who won the bronze medal in women's skeleton. She was surprised by the emotional and inspirational impact of the closing ceremonies in Turin when the torch was passed to Vancouver, which will host the next Winter Olympics in 2010.

``When they did the introduction for Vancouver I got pretty tingly _ I was really excited to get home,'' said the 26-year-old champion, her eyes bright. ``It definitely lit a little bit of a flame in my heart to work harder and hopefully to be in Vancouver and on top of the podium.''

Many of Canada's 24 medals came from athletes who live or train in Alberta and those from the sliding sports were the first to arrive back after the Games official closing Sunday.

Members of the women's gold medal team were to arrive late Monday night while silver medal-winning bobsledders Pierre Lueders of Edmonton and Lascelles Brown of Calgary were due back late Tuesday afternoon.

But some Olympic champions, including cross-country gold medallist Chandra Crawford and speedskaters Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes, won't be home for weeks. They're remaining in Europe for World Cup competition.