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Olympic 2018 Results: Medal Winners, Top Scores from Thursday's Early Events
February 15, 2018
With a pair of gold medals on Wednesday night in Pyeongchang, South Korea, it's now Norway who is trying to chase down Germany for the gold medal lead at this year's Winter Olympics.
Top honors in the men's 20-kilometer individual biathlon and women's 10-kilometer individual cross country skiing events brought Norway's total to six golds for these Games.
Germany still holds the lead with nine—a total they added to with a win in the team luge competition.
Elsewhere, medals were also handed out in the women's 15-kilometer individual biathlon and men's 10,000 meters speedskating.
Here's a look at the full medal results from those early events:
Medal Winners
Biathlon: Women's 15K Individual
Gold: Hanna Oeberg (Sweden)
Silver: Anastasiya Kuzmina (Slovakia)
Bronze: Laura Dahlmeier (Germany)
Biathlon: Men's 20K Individual
Gold: Johannes Thingnes Boe (Norway)
Silver: Jakov Fak (Slovenia)
Bronze: Dominik Landertinger (Austria)
Cross Country: Women's 10K Individual
Gold: Ragnhild Haga (Norway)
Silver: Charlotte Kalla (Sweden)
Bronze: Marit Bjorgen (Norway) and Krista Parmakoski (Finland)
Luge: Team Relay
Gold: Germany
Silver: Canada
Bronze: Austria
Speedskating: Men's 10,000m
Gold: Ted-Jan Bloemen (Canada)
Silver: Jorrit Bergsma (Netherlands)
Bronze: Nicola Tumolero (Italy)
Top Scores
Let's start with a compelling story in the men's 10,000 meters speedskating event, where Ted-Jan Bloemen of Canada ended what had been complete dominance by the Netherlands across all speedskating events.
Interestingly enough, Bloemen actually has strong Dutch ties, as an Associated Press report (via ESPN) explained:
"Unable to get on the Dutch team for the 2014 Sochi Games, Bloemen needed to change everything around. At 27, he was ill-disciplined and could not find his way in the ultra-competitive world of Dutch speedskating.
His father was born in New Brunswick, Canada, and with little to lose he tried the last option he could think of and became a member of the Canadian team."
He edged out defending gold-medal winner Jorrit Bergsma by 2.21 seconds for the win.
Speaking of past dominance, Germany added another gold medal in luge.
After sweeping the four events at the 2014 Games, they took home three of four golds this time around when they completed the circuit with a win in the team relay.
Canada (0.355 seconds behind) and Austria (0.471) followed, with the U.S. (0.574) finishing just off the medal pace in fourth.
The women's 10-kilometer cross-country race ended in a tie for third to create a rare four-person podium.
Ragnhild Haga of Norway took home gold, but it was teammate Marit Bjorgen who made history as Tom Dougherty of NBC Sports explained:
"Bjorgen's bronze medal is her 12th career Olympic medal, moving her into a tie with fellow Norwegian skier Bjoern Daehlie for the most Olympic cross-country medals of all-time.
"With one more medal, Bjorgen will tie Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen as the most decorated Winter Olympian ever. She's already the most decorated female Winter Olympian."
Meanwhile, Laura Dahlmeier of Germany fell short of some history of her own, settling for bronze in the women's 15-kilometer biathlon. She was searching for her third gold of these Games after winning the sprint and pursuit events.
On the men's biathlon side, Johannes Thingnes Boe took home gold in the 20-kilometer, capitalizing on two misses from leader Martin Fourcade in the final shooting bout that left the event wide open.
Results courtesy of NBCOlympics.com.