PyeongChang Olympics Medal Count: Norway Widens Lead on Germany; Dutch Gaining in Golds

Norway is still in the lead while the Dutch are gaining ground in gold medals.

Author:
Jon Tayler
Publish date:
Feb 16, 2018

Thanks to podium finishes in the men's super-G and men's 15-kilometer free race in cross-country skiing, Norway has opened up a four-medal lead on Germany for the top spot in the 2018 Winter Olympics. Kjetil Jansrud (bronze in the super-G) and Simen Hegstad Krueger (silver in the 15-K, his second medal of the Games) helped add to Norway's tally, giving the Scandinavian superpower its 18th and 19th medals in PyeongChang.

The Germans remain in second with 15 medals and still lead the gold medal count with nine, three ahead of Norway. But the Netherlands is slowly creeping up on both countries in first-place finishes thanks to its total dominance in speedskating. On Thursday (well, Friday in South Korea), the Dutch added yet another gold on the ice, with Esmee Visser winning the women's 5,000 meter race, defeating the Czech Republic's Martina Sablikova and Natalia Voronina of the Olympic Athletes from Russia. And they can conceivably pick up two more in their favorite event today, as the finals of the women's 1,500 meters and the men's 1,000 meters are set to happen early Saturday morning here in the United States. All told, the Dutch are third overall with 13 medals.

Rounding out the top five are Canada (tied with the Netherlands with 13 medals) and the United States, Austria, and the OAR (all tied with eight). Neither Canada nor the U.S. was able to add to its total yesterday, with Team USA missing out on a golden chance (literally) in the women's slalom, where defending champion Mikaela Shiffrin finished off the podium in her best event. The medals there instead went to Sweden's Frida Hansdottir (gold), Switzerland's Wendy Holdener (silver) and Austria's Katharina Gallhuber (bronze). The alpine events were a boon for the Austrians, particularly in the men's super-G, where Matthias Meyer broke Norway's 16-year run of golds by taking first; he's the first Austrian (and first non-Norwegian) to win an Olympic super-G race since legendary skier Hermann Maier back in 1998.

Yesterday in PyeongChang saw firsts for two other countries as well. In women's freestyle skiing aerials, Belarus' Hanna Huskova took home gold, the first for the former Soviet republic in these Games, by beating a pair of Chinese skiers, Zhang Xin (silver) and Kong Fanyu (bronze). And in men's skeleton, South Korea's Yun Sung-bin made history for the host nation as he captured the country's first ever Olympic gold in a sliding event, as well as the first ever gold for an Asian skeleton racer, and Korea's third gold overall in PyeongChang. Yun easily held off Russia's Nikita Tregubov and Great Britain's Dom Parsons (silver and bronze, respectively) for first.

For a current tally of all the medals that have been won, check out our live tracker right here.