It was USA’s turn this time. After been beaten by Canada in the last two finals of Olympics, the USA beat their old rivals Canada to win the Women’s Ice Hockey final by 3-2 in penalty shootout. In doing so, the Americans secured their first Olympic title in the event since the inaugural competition at Nagano 1998. The match went to penalty shootout after both teams finished with 2-2 in normal time followed by a goalless overtime. Hilary Knight and Monique Lamoureux-Morando scored for the USA in normal time. Haley Irwin and Marie-Philip Poulin scored for Canada. In the first penalty shootout in an Olympic women’s ice hockey final, Maddie Rooney of the USA and Shannon Szabados of Canada both made two saves each. Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson then cleared the goal to take the score 3-2 for the Americans. The final moment came when Rooney again saved the shot from Meghan Agosta’s stick and team USA ruptured in joy.
Austria’s Anna Gasser etched her name in history book as the gold medal winner of the inaugural Women’s Big Air event in Olympics at Pyeongchang. Gasser was behind American Jamie Anderson throughout the three-jump final. But in the last jump she cleanly landed a cab double cork 1080 to score 96.00 to push Jamie to second position and win the gold for her country. Prior to Gasser’s final jump, Anderson failed to land her final jump but was still ahead by 3 points. She had to settle for the silver. 16-year-old Zoi Sadowski Synnott of New Zealand, whose second jump scored 92.00 took the bronze.
David Wise of the USA defended his Olympic title in Men’s Ski Halfpipe scoring 97.20. His score displaced countryman Alex Ferreira at the top of the leaderboard and making him the silver medallist. New Zealand’s 16-year-old Nico Porteous snatched the bronze medal with the second run of his first Olympic final, which netted him a 94.80.
It was a surprise gold for Sweden in Alpine Skiing Men’s Slalom when Andre Myhrer won it while favourites like Austria’s Marcel Hirscher and Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen stumbled. Myhrer produced a steady second run to set an overall target of 1.38.99 that became difficult for others to cover. Ramon Zenhaeusern of Switzerland climbed up from ninth-fastest at the halfway stage to claim the silver while Austria’s Michael Matt recovered from 12th place after the first leg to claim the bronze. This is the Olympic third medal for the Matt family after Michael’s brothers Mario and Andreas respectively won Slalom gold at Sochi 2014 and Freestyle Men’s Ski Cross silver at Vancouver 2010.
Another surprise gold was won by Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands in 1000m Women’s Short Track Speed Skating. The 20-year-old led from the start to claim the Olympic title in the event. Kim Boutin won her third medal at Pyeongchang with the silver following her bronze medals in the 500m and 1,500m. Arianna Fontana took her Olympic medal tally to eight winning the bronze here.
Michelle Gisin of Switzerland won the gold in Women’s Alpine Skiing Combined event at Pyeongchang 2018. 24-year-old Gisin was the silver medallist in the event at the 2017 World Championships. Mikaela Shiffrin of the USA won the silver while the reigning world champion Wendy Holdener of Switzerland finished the podium with the bronze.
Wu Dajing of China who was favourite to win the Men’s Short Track Speed Skating 500m final, had a false start. But he made up for that and won gold in a world record time of 39.5.884. Hwang Daeheon and Lim Hyojun won the silver and bronze, both representing Republic of Korea, respectively. Daeheon finished in a time of 39.854, while Hyojun finished afterclocking a time of 39.919.
Its another gold medal for Germany in Nordic Combined. The quartet of Vinzenz Geiger, Fabian Reissle, Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek produced a stupendous run in Men’s Team Large Hill/4x5km event to snatch the gold and make three out of three golds in Nordic Combined for Germany. Defending champions Norway comprising of Jan Schmid, Espen Andersen, Jarl Magnus Riiber and Joergen Graabak won the silver. Austria kept their date with Nordic podium intact as their team of Wilhelm Denifl, Lukas Klapfer, Bernhard Gruber and Mario Seidl won the bronze.
Hungary won their first Winter Olympics gold medal when their men’s team of Sandor Liu Shaolin, Shaoang Liu, Viktor Knoch and Csaba Burjan emerged victorious in Men’s Short Track Speed Skating.It was Hungary’s first medal after 38 years when they won a silver in Figure Skating. China were in the second position.Their team of Wu Dajing, Han Tianyu, Xu Hongzhi and Chen Dequan won the silver. The Canadian team of Samuel Girard, Charles Hamelin, Charle Cournoyer and Pascal Dion won the bronze.
Belarus took the Women’s Biathlon 4x6km Relay gold going ahead of Sweden who took silver and France who claimed bronze. Darya Domracheva skied a perfect final leg to win the gold for Belarus. Sweden’s anchor Hanna Oeberg fought back from almost a minute behind to take silver for her team. Anais Bescond crossed the line third to claim bronze for France.
