Women’s hockey team wins surprising gold medal

This year at the Olympics, the U.S. women’s hockey team has been doing way better than in recent years; so good in fact, that the team just won its first gold medal in 20 years. It’s the 38-year anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, when a group of nobody hockey players participated in the Olympics and beat the virtually unstoppable Soviet Union. T

his year, the U.S. team beat their biggest rival Canada in a thrilling finish involving a 20-minute overtime and six rounds of a shootout.

The winning goal, scored by Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson, has been practiced over and over – and failed – hundreds of times before. However, at the perfect time, she made the go

al in her roundabout, faking-out way and pushed the U.S. above Canada 3-2. At the medal ceremony, Canadian athlete Jocelyne Larocque removed her silver medal while standing on the podium out of bitterness for winning it instead of gold.

U.S. wins top medals in snowboard halfpipe

17-year-old Californian Chloe Kim has become one of the most talked about athletes of this year’s winter games, from her powerful performance to her hungry tweets between runs. The three time X Games halfpipe winner earned her first Olympic gold medal after comple

ting two back-to-back 1080 rotations in her almost perfect run. Kim became the youngest gold medalist in an Olympic snowboard event, and she also qualified for the 2014 Sochi Games at the age of 13. However, she was too young to compete at the time.

Meanwhile, for the men’s halfpipe, veteran Shaun White made a return to his fourth Olympics and won his third gold medal after being shut out following a fall in Sochi. White landed back-to-back 1440 rotations in his winning run after he fell behind Japanese athlete Ayumu Hirano earlier in the competition. Once he finished his run, White knew he had won gold after landing all his challenging tricks and instantly began to celebrate.

The Shib Sibs take bronze and Nathan Chen creates history

The U.S. brother-sister ice dancing pair of Alex and Maia Shibutani- dubbed the Shib Sibs- wowed crowds as they took the ice in the pairs ice dancing final. Dancing to Coldplay in what they call, ‘the ending of a trilogy of routines’, the siblings’ almost error-free performance was a powerful one that had them leading before being passed by

Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who won gold. France’ Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron took silver, following their wardrobe malfunction in the short program.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old ice skater Nathan Chen came back and dazzled in his individual skating performance, after a mistake-laden team performance earlier in the week. Chen did what no other Olympian had done prior: he attempted six quad rotations in a single performance. He landed five of them clean with no error, however Chen was still pushed off the podium due to being in fourth place prior to the free-skate event.

How a subpar skier became an Olympian

American-born Elizabeth

Swaney has dreamed for years of making it to the Olympics for halfpipe skiing, however she doesn’t know a single trick in the sport. Considering the U.S. team is, well, good, Swaney had to reevaluate how she intended to reach that goal and i

nstead realized she could represent Hungary due to her Hungarian grandparents. The 33-year-old then trained and participated in World Cup events around the world – most of which that did not attract more than 30 women – all to meet the minimum requirements of the games.

The minimum requirements consist of gaining enough points in competitions, as well as having a decent amount of top 30 finishes; which became easy when there are below 30 competitors. Considering Swaney’s play-it-safe approach to the sport, she could stay standing and gain enough points at competitions to qualify for the Winter Games. In her competition here in Pyeongchang, Swaney came in dead last after only skating up and down the halfpipe for both of her runs. However, she did achieve her one goal of making it to the Olympics, even in her unconventional and trickster way.

The North Korean cheer squad

For the last week and a half, the North Korean cheerleaders have been stunning crowds with their synchronized cheers, dances, and identical outfits around the Olympic Games so far. The squad has been spotted cheering on the unified North and South Korean hockey team, as well as holding flags of a unified Korean Peninsula while watching ice skating. This is the first time a cheer squad has been sent from North Korea to a worldwide sporting event since 2005. At the time, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s now-wife was a member of the squad.

The Olympic Athletes from Russia’s bittersweet wins

For the first two weeks of the Olympics, the Russian athletes competing neutrally following Russia’s doping scandal and ban never won a single gold medal. However, that all changed when 15-year-old skating powerhouse Alina Zagitova won the OAR’s first gold in the women’s ice skating final. For two minutes, Zagitova awkwardly stood at the top of the podium while the five-ring flag rose above and the Olympic hymn played instead of her own nation’s anthem.

The scene played out once more when the OAR’s mens hockey team beat Germany for gold on the final day of the games, just hours after the Olympic Committee decided to extend the ban on the Russians. As the neutral flag lifted, the Russian team began to sing their own anthem over the Olympic hymn, violating the committee’s ruling of neutrality. Prior to the game, the team decided as a whole that they would sing the song if they won gold.