Jorien ter Mors of the Netherlands gave her country a record-equalling fourth Olympic gold medal in the event as he cruised to victory in 1,000m gold at Pyeongchang. In her way to the gold, she powered to a new Olympic record of 1:13.56. Nao Kodaira of Japan settled for silver as she could not sustain her momentum towards the finishing line and clocked 0.26 seconds behind Mors. Miho Takagi timed 1:13.98 to take the bronze. Earlier, defending Olympic champion Zhang Hong had a bad day as she stumbled towards the end of her heat which shattered her hope for the second consecutive gold in the event. Jorien ter Mors’ victory gave Netherlands their last seven Speed Skating gold at the Olympic Winter Games-the last two medals at Sochi 2014 and the first five medals at PyeongChang 2018.
Shaun White became the first snowboarder ever to claim three Olympic gold medals as he took gold in this year’s event. He won gold medals at Torino 2006 and Vancouver 2010. White defeated silver medallist 19-year old Ayumu Hirano of Japan on the very last run of the Snowboard Halfpipe final. Twice world champion Scotty James of Austrslia won the bronze medal. This year, the Snowboard Halfpipe final included three runs instead of the usual two that gave the 12 competitors an extra chance to reproduce their high quality athleticism.
German duo Tobias Arlt and Tobias Wendl won their second successive gold in the Olympic Winter Games Men’s Open Doubles Luge in an exciting final. Austrian duo Peter Penz and Georg Fischler clocked a combined time of 131. 785 seconds to take the lead in the final run. It was left for the Tobiases to surpass that time or finish second. They took the challenge and clocked an impressive second run which saw them win by just 0.088 seconds. Penz and Fischler had to finish with silver. The bronze was taken by Arlt and Wendl’s compatriots and reigning world champions Sascha Benecken and Toni Eggert.
Eric Frenzel of Germany emerged winner at a nail-biting last lap in the Men’s Nordic Combined Individual event finishing ahead of favourite Akito Watabe of Japan by 4.8 seconds. Akito had five wins in the 2017-18 World Cup season. Lukas Klapfer of Austria claimed the bronze. Frenzel was fifth after the ski jumping round but in the final lap of the 10km race, he went ahead with a powerful surge on the final hill to shake off all the challenges. It is Frenzel’s fourth Olympic medal after team silver in Sochi 2014 and team bronze at Vancouver 2010.
