Over the last 98 years, there have been 25 Winter Olympics, the most recent in the Italian Alps.
Norway came out on top with a total of 41 medals, while the U.S. had a combined 33 to take second place. This gives Norway their fourth consecutive win in the winter games, setting a new record for most golds won (18) and most medals won (41) in a games. For comparison, the U.S. won 12 golds. All information about medals and places for teams is given by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The games started off with curling round-robin sessions on Feb. 4 and finished up Feb. 10, with Sweden taking first over the U.S.. Round-robin in curling is where all the teams play each other once before the brackets are made for the rest of the event. We cannot address curling without discussing Canada’s cheating scandal. The Swedish team accused the Canadians of cheating, setting up a camera to confirm their suspicions. The accusation was met with a rebuttal full of expletives, as reported by ESPN.
Men’s big air snowboard qualification runs happened Feb. 5, with the top 12 scores moving on to the finals. The winner of the event was Japan’s Kira Kimura, scoring a total of 179.50 points from his three runs on the halfpipe. Women’s parallel giant slalom (PGS) quals and elimination rounds happened back-to-back, with 16 of the 32 competitors being knocked out of the competition after the first round. Men’s PGS qualms and columns knocked out 15 of the 31 competitors. Women’s small and big PGS finals finished up with Czechia’s Zuzana Maderova in first place. Men’s PGS also finished up with Austria’s Benjamin Karl taking first. To complete the women’s big air snowboard final, Kokomo Murase won the event.
In the figure skating team event, where skaters compete in a team with the rest of their country, the U.S. took gold over Japan by one point. U.S. pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates placed first in the rhythm dance, Japanese pair Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara took the top spot for Pair Skating, along with Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto finishing first for women’s individual skating, and American Ilia Malinin taking first for men’s single skating.
Women’s figure skating individual finals have taken the spotlight with Alysa Liu’s recent return to the sport leading to the first U.S. women’s gold since 2002. She initially retired at 16 due to severe burnout and a loss of love for the sport, but she returned this year with a focus on her own mental health rather than the chase of medals. She came back on her own terms after separating her family and her management team, specifically removing her father and taking control of her music and costumes. A video posted by NBC Bay Area on TikTok shows the three medalists, Liu, Japanese Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai, jumping as they step up onto the podium. This is a huge moment for all three of these women, but it is also an important moment in women’s sports. They all embraced each other and had support from the men’s teams as well. This included Estonian skater Niina Petrõkina “shooting” the U.S.’s Ilia Malinin in the beginning of her “Cell Block Tango” routine.
Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida won the women’s 3km speed skating event, and Norway added another medal to their rapidly growing count on the back of Sander Eitrem’s 5km speed skating win. Team Italy won the short track mixed relay speed skating event.
Many events started Feb. 7 such as men’s downhill alpine skiing, in which Switzerland’s Franjo von Allmen took gold and women’s cross country skiing where Sweden’s Frida Karlsson earned the win. In the women’s ski jumping finals, Norway’s Anna Odien Stroem went home with the victory. The U.S.’s Breezy Johnson took gold in the women’s downhill skiing. Men’s 10km + 10km skiathlon finished with Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Kalebo walking away with first as well. Women’s freestyle downhill skiing ended with Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud taking first place. Switzerland also took gold in the men’s team slalom in alpine skiing, while Austria won on the women’s side of the event. Men’s ski jump finals wrapped up with German Philipp Raimund winning gold. To conclude the men’s freeski slopestyle event, Norway’s Birk Ruud won gold. Sweden swept the podium in the women’s ski sprint classic. As the ski events wrapped up, Slovenia took the gold for mixed team ski jumping. Norway’s Jens Luraas Oftebro won the Nordic combined event Individual Gundersen normal hill/10km.
In the mixed biathlon finals, each member of the relay team competes in 6km of the overall 24km. The French team took home the gold medal.
Luge started up soon after, with Germany’s Max Langhen taking first place. This set a new record for the event. Meanwhile, Germany’s Julia Taubitz won on the women’s side for the singles run.
In a historic turn of events, both the U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams beat Team Canada. This was a significant event for the men’s hockey team, as this is their first win in 40 years, since the team beat the Soviet Union in 1986.
This was a Winter Olympics games for the books, with outstanding performances in all event groups, including a particularly strong performance from the Norwegian team. From the empowering performances in both men and women’s figure skating and men and women’s hockey finals, these games lived up to the hype.
