Medal Tally Olympics 2018: Final Table for USA and Most Decorated Countries

The 2018 Winter Olympics are in the books and the Olympic flame is on its way for another global journey after spending the past two weeks in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The competition across 15 sports and 102 events saw 30 different countries win medals, the most in Winter Olympic history, and 22 claim a gold.

Here's the final medal table:

The addition of six new events contributed to several nations setting records for medals won, including Norway, which in topping the medal table for the first time since Salt Lake City in 2002 also collected the most medals (39) in Winter Olympic history. That was 13 more than the country's previous best of 26, achieved at Sochi, Russia, in 2014 and Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994.

Norway's win was fueled by dominance in sports like alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing and ski jumping. It was also aided by athletes capable of winning multiple medals, as 17 different Norwegians won at least two.

Five came from Marit Bjorgen, giving her an astounding 15 medals in her career that dates back to a silver medal won in 2002.

Germany's 14 gold medals, which tied with Norway for the most in Pyeongchang, were its most ever, including years when the country was split into two nations (East/West Germany).

Seven medals in biathlon and six in luge were the main contributors, but the Germans also got unlikely contributions from their men's ice hockey team getting silver and the duo of Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot winning gold in pairs figure skating.

Canada set a national record with 29 medals, beating its previous best of 26 from Vancouver in 2010, and that was despite a subpar performance by its team sports. The men's and women's ice hockey teams earned bronze and silver, respectively, but both were multi-defending Olympic champions, while their curling teams both failed to medal after each winning gold in 2014.

Instead the Canadians got big performances in freestyle skiing (seven medals, including four golds), short-track speedskating (five) and figure skating (four).

The United States finished in fourth place in both overall medals (23) and in golds (nine). The total tally was its lowest since a 13-medal performance at Nagano in 1998 when it was sixth-best.

Its nine gold medals were the same number it collected in each of the previous three Winter Games, however, and they were the result of a mix of first-time and previous Olympic champions.

Most surprising of the former was the men's curling team, which shocked defending champion Canada in the semifinals and then downed Sweden in the gold-medal match.

The U.S. women's ice hockey team beat Canada in a shootout for its first gold since 1998, while the pair of Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall gave Team USA its first-ever gold in cross-country skiing by winning the women's team sprint.

The other first-time American gold medalists were snowboarders Redmond Gerard and Chloe Kim, whose wins in the men's and women's halfpipe helped Team USA clean up in that sport with seven total medals in 10 events.

Jamie Anderson (snowboarding women's slopestyle) and David Wise (freestyle men's halfpipe) repeated as gold medalists in their events, Shaun White won his third snowboarding men's halfpipe gold (but first since 2010), and Mikaela Shiffrin took gold in alpine skiing women's giant slalom after winning the slalom four years ago.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.