The US closed the Men’s Curling event with a gold in the rink defeating Sweden 10-7. It is the second ever Olympic curling medal for the Americans following the bronze earned at Turin 2006. US skip John Shuster produced a stunnng dis[lay of accuracy to win the hearts and the gold. Sweden had to settle for silver, one step ahead of their bronze medal at Sochi 2014. Switzerland won the bronze.
Canadian snowboarder, Sebastien Toutant won the first ever Men’s Snowboard Big Air gold at Pyeongchang. The event has three rounds of jumps where Toutant landed jumps of 84.75 and 89.50 in the first two rounds. This almost made his victory clear. Kyle Mack of the USA was his only match who took silver medal after a clean jump in the final round. Billy Morgan of Great Britain won the bronze medal.
Switzerland has won the inaugural running of the Alpine Skiing Team event by defeating Austria 3-1. The Swiss team of Denise Feierabend, Ramon Zenhaeusern, Wendy Holdener and Daniel Yule went against the Austrian squad of Katharina Liensberger, Michael Matt, Katharina Gallhuber and Marco Schwarz. Katharina Liensberger struck first for Austria. Then Ramon Zenhaeusern and Wendy Holdener took Switzerland ahead. Austria needed only a win to take the gold but Marco Schwarz made an error on the final run. It was advantage for the Swiss. Daniel Yule held his nerve and crossed the line first to claim the gold medal for Switzerland. In the bronze medal match, Norway and France split the four runs 2-2 but Norway was the winner on time difference of merely 0.12 seconds.
Ester Ledecka of Czech Republic claimed her second gold by winning the Women’s Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom. Ledecka is now the owner of a rare double as she had won the Super-G event and became the first athlete to win events in both Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding at the same Olympic Winter Games. Germany’s Selina Yoerg won the silver while the bronze went to 21-year-old Olympic debutant Ramona Hofmeister also from Germany.
Nevin Galmarini of Switzerland broke the hearts of the spectators as he went past Republic of Korea’s Lee Sang-ho to win gold in the Men’s Giant Parallel Slalom. Galmarini was determined to upgrade his silver medal won at Sochi 2014 in the same event as he crossed the line 0.43 seconds ahead of Lee. While Lee won the silver, Zan Kosir of Slovenia, won the bronze.
In a thrilling final of the Men’s Cross Country 50km Mass Start, Finland’s Iivo Niskanen finished the race in 2.8:22.1 seconds to grasp the gold. Alexander Bolshunov representing the Olympic Athlete of Russia (OAR) finished 18.7 seconds behind the Finn to claim the silver. Andrey Larkov also representing OAR won the bronze.
Nana Takagi of Japan owned her second gold medal at PyeongChang 2018 after helping her country to win gold in the team pursuit. She won the inaugural Olympic Women’s Mass Start by producing a fine sprint round the final bend to overtake reigning world champion Kim Bo-reum of Republic of Korea. Kim settled for silver while 2015 world champion, Irene Schouten of the Netherlands took the bronze.
The men’s inaugural medal in Mass Start went to home favourite and current world number one Lee Seung-hoon. Lee, who won Olympic gold over 10,000m at Vancouver 2010, moved into the front around the last bend and crossed the line before Bart Swings of Belgium who took the silver. Netherlands’ Koen Verweij claimed the bronze with 20 points.
The Mixed Doubles Curling bronze was officially re-attributed to the Norwegian pair of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten after the Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR) pair Alexander Krushelnitsky and Anastasia Bryzgalov was striped off the medal due to the confirmation of Krushelnitsky committing an Anti-Doping Rule Violation.
