Winter Olympics medal count 2018: Japan wins big on Saturday with gold, silver in figure skating

Going into Saturday at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the medals race looked very similar to previous days: Norway, Germany and the Netherlands were in the top three, in that order. While Germany led all of them in gold medals with nine, the other two had six. In the evening, the men’s figure skating medals were to be handed out, which was the biggest on the day.

Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan added a gold to his country’s count with a brilliant showing in the free skate. American Nathan Chen had an even better showing, but a poor short program in the preceding round hurt his total score and he did not podium. Japan also got a silver from figure skating thanks to Shoma Uno, while Spain picked up its first ever figure skating medal and fourth ever Winter Olympics medal with Javier Fernandez securing bronze.

The evening also saw the women’s super-G event, where American Lindsey Vonn was hoping to medal. Unfortunately, she struggled and finished tied for sixth place. Ester Ledecka of the Czech Republic won a surprise gold with a time of 1:21.11. Anna Veith of Austria took the silver, while Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein won the bronze.

In the women’s slopestyle finals, also late in the evening, Sarah Hoefflin and Mathilde Gremaud of Sweden took gold and silver, with Isabel Atkin of Great Britain managing a surprising bronze.

The early morning saw three events with medals given out: men’s 15-kilometer individual cross country skiing, women’s 5000-meter speed skating and women’s aerials in freestyle skiing. The medals for those events didn’t all go to the top countries in the medal count, which certainly shook things up.

In freestyle skiing, Belarus picked up the gold thanks to Hanna Huskova, while China’s Zhang Xin and Kong Fanyu managed silver and bronze. In speed skating, the Netherlands added to its medal count — unsurprising given its dominance in the sport — when Esmee Visser took gold. Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic took silver while Natalia Vorinna, an Olympic Athlete from Russia (OAR), took bronze.

Finally, in cross country skiing, Dario Cologna of Switzerland took the gold, Simen Hegstad Krueger of Norway took silver and Denis Spitsov of OAR managed bronze.