Olympic 2018 Results: Thursday's Early Medal Winners, Scores and Top Performers

The United States women's hockey team continued the American medal surge Thursday morning by ending its 20-year gold-medal drought at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Following a terrific rally over the last 48 hours, the United States sits fourth in the medal count with 21 medals, and there's an outside chance it catches Canada by Sunday since the gap between the North American rivals is three medals.

Although the Americans were victorious in women's hockey, they experienced a disappointment in the women's alpine combined. Although Mikaela Shiffrin won silver, Lindsey Vonn did not finish the slalom portion of the event.

In Thursday's other medal events at the Olympics, Germany tied Norway for most golds in South Korea, records were broken in two of three short-track speedskating finals and Belarus added a gold to its haul in biathlon.

Medal Count

Thursday Morning's Medalists

Alpine Skiing

Women's Combined

Gold: Michelle Gisin (Switzerland, 2:20.90) 

Silver: Mikaela Shiffrin (United States, 2:21.87)

Bronze: Wendy Holdener (Switzerland, 2:22.34)

Biathlon

Women's 4x6-kilometer relay

Gold: Belarus  (1:12:03.4) 

Silver: Sweden  (1:12:14.1)

Bronze: France  (1:12:21.0)

Women's Ice Hockey

Gold: United States

Silver: Canada

Bronze: Finland

Nordic Combined

Team Gundersen long hill/4x5-kilometer cross-country relay

Gold: Germany  (46:09.8)

Silver: Norway  (47:02.5)

Bronze: Austria  (47:17.6)

Short-Track Speedskating

Men's 500-meters

Gold: Wu Dajing (China, 39.584) 

Silver: Hwang Dae-heon (South Korea, 39.854)

Bronze: Lim Hyo-jun (South Korea, 39.919)

Women's 1,000-meters

Gold: Suzanne Schulting (Netherlands, 1:29.778) 

Silver: Kim Boutin (Canada, 1:29.956)

Bronze: Arianna Fontana (Italy, 1:30.656)

Men's 5,000-meter relay

Gold: Hungary (6:31.971) 

Silver: China  (6:32.035)

Bronze: Canada  (6:32.282)

Top Performers

United States Women's Hockey Team

The United States rallied from a goal down in the third period to knock off bitter rival Canada for its first gold in women's hockey since 1998.

Monique Lamoureux-Morando leveled the contest at two goals apiece, as she beat Canada goalie Shannon Szabados on a breakaway while Canada was in the middle of a line change.

After a tense 20-minute overtime period in which Szabados and American goalie Maddie Rooney traded spectacular saves, the game went into a shootout.

In the sixth round of the shootout, Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson pulled off an incredible move in front of Szabados to maneuver from left to right and score the game-winning goal.

NBC Olympics gave us a look at the incredible shot:

"

If you needed a better look at how DIRTY Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson's game winning goal was  https://t.co/wkOWa0qwZl pic.twitter.com/7GRRCOkoNk

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 22, 2018"

Monique Lamoureux-Morando went into detail about the final move from her sister when talking to NBC's Pierre Maguire after the game, per the NHL on NBC's official Twitter account:

"One of our coaches, Peter Elander, has worked on that move with us. It's called 'Oops, I did it again.' She did 'Oops' against Russia and then she did it again against Szabados there. I've seen it a handful of times and usually it works every time," Monique Lamoureux-Morando said.

Michelle Gisin

Four years after her sister Dominique shared first place with Tina Maze in the women's downhill, Switzerland's Michelle Gisin won her own gold in the women's alpine combined.

Gisin finished third in the downhill portion of the event behind Vonn and Norway's Ragnhild Mowinckel.

Luca Bruno/Associated Press

In the slalom portion, the Swiss skier was the fourth-fastest racer down the slopes to record the best combined time of two minutes, 20.90 seconds.

Shiffrin was her closest competitor, but the American was 97-hundredths of a second behind the first-time gold-medal winner.

The victory was even sweeter for Gisin, because she placed on the podium alongside teammate Wendy Holdener, who took bronze behind Shiffrin.

Wu Dajing

China earned its first gold in Pyeongchang in stunning fashion, as Wu Dajing broke his own world-record time to win the short-track speedskating men's 500-meters.

Wu originally set a new world record in the quarterfinal heats, as he won Heat 2 in 39.800 seconds to break the mark of 39.937 seconds held by J.R. Celski of the United States from 2012.

Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

The 23-year-old improved on his world-record time in the final, as he beat South Korea's Hwang Dae-heon and Lim Hyo-jun as well as Canada's Sam Girard in a time of 39.584 seconds.

The gold was the first for Wu, who also earned silver in the men's 5,000-meter relay Thursday. He picked up a silver and bronze in two events four years ago in Sochi, Russia.

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.

Statistics obtained from Olympic.org.