50 Fun Facts About 2018 Winter Olympics

Which Pacific nation's flag bearer marched shirtless and oiled in the cold at the 2018 Olympics?

Tonga's Pita Taufatofua had done the same at Rio 2016 as a taekwondo fighter. He then took up cross-country skiing and was his country's only athlete in Pyeongchang.

Which crop gave South Korea's silver-medal women's curling team its nickname at the 2018 Olympics?

Garlic is what the rural county of Uiseong was long known for, so fans dubbed its curlers the Garlic Girls. All five team members share the surname Kim.

The 2018 Olympic host was styled 'PyeongChang', with a capital C, to avoid a mix-up with which city?

Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea, and in English the two names differ by only a few letters. The Games emblem was built from the Korean letters that begin 'Pyeong' and 'Chang'.

Yun Sung-bin won skeleton gold at the 2018 Olympics in a helmet styled after which Marvel superhero?

Iron Man appeared to fly head-first down the track on Yun's helmet. He won by 1.63 seconds, a record margin for Olympic skeleton, and gave Asia its first Olympic gold in a sliding sport.

Which skier scattered her war-veteran grandfather's ashes near the 2018 Olympic downhill course?

Lindsey Vonn's grandfather Don Kildow, who taught her to ski, had served in the Korean War and died three months earlier. She raced with his initials on her helmet and won downhill bronze.

What became of the $100 million Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium within months of the 2018 Games?

It was demolished after hosting only the four Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies and one K-pop concert. To limit costs it had been built with no roof and no central heating.

Which skater, whose fans throw Winnie-the-Pooh toys onto the ice, kept his Olympic title in 2018?

Yuzuru Hanyu became the first man to defend the Olympic singles title since American Dick Button in 1952. The Pooh custom grew from a tissue box he carried to competitions.

Which 17-year-old won snowboard halfpipe gold at the 2018 Olympics with a top score of 98.25?

Chloe Kim won in South Korea, the country her parents had left for the United States. She had been too young to enter the previous Winter Olympics four years earlier.

North Korea sent what kind of 230-strong troupe to sing in the stands at the 2018 Olympics?

A cheerleading squad came at South Korea's invitation, part of a push to improve relations between the two countries. Its numbers included 'Whistle', a North Korean pop song from 1990.

Which snowboarder's 2018 halfpipe win was the United States' 100th Winter Olympic gold medal?

Shaun White scored 97.75 to take his third Olympic halfpipe title, twelve years after his first. Japan's Ayumu Hirano had to settle for silver for the second Games running.

Which athlete won golds in both skiing and snowboarding at the 2018 Olympics, a Winter Games first?

Ester Ledecká took the super-G by 0.01 seconds after many media outlets had already proclaimed Anna Veith the winner. She then won her specialist event, snowboarding's parallel giant slalom.

Which country's 39 medals at the 2018 Olympics set a Winter Games record that stood for eight years?

Norway passed the 37 medals the United States had won at Vancouver 2010 and tied Germany for the most golds, with 14 each. Its own team finally broke the record in 2026.

What was the name of the white tiger mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics?

Soohorang joins 'sooho', Korean for protection, to part of the word for tiger. The white tiger is regarded as Korea's sacred guardian animal.

Pyeongchang won the 2018 Olympics on its third straight bid; which city had beaten it for 2014?

Sochi edged Pyeongchang by just four votes, after Vancouver had beaten it by three for 2010. The third attempt was a first-round landslide, with 63 of the 95 votes.

Pyeongchang 2018 began a run of three straight Olympics in East Asia; which city staged the third?

Beijing followed Tokyo's Summer Games with the 2022 Winter Olympics. That made it the first city to host both the Summer and the Winter Games.

Under what team name did Russian competitors enter the 2018 Olympics while their flag was banned?

Olympic Athletes from Russia marched behind the Olympic flag and heard the Olympic anthem at their medal ceremonies. Their national committee had been suspended over state-sponsored doping.

What appeared on the flag North and South Korea marched behind together at the 2018 Olympics?

A blue peninsula on a white field, the outline of all Korea, forms the Korean Unification Flag. It made its debut in 1991, when the two countries sent a joint team to the world table tennis championships.

Which three-letter code did the unified Korean women's ice hockey team use at the 2018 Olympics?

COR comes from Corée, the French word for Korea, which avoided either country's own code. The joint roster of 35 players was agreed only about three weeks before the Games opened.

Which South Korean star lit the 2018 Olympic cauldron after skating on a small rink beside it?

Kim Yuna, the 2010 Olympic figure skating champion, took the flame from two members of the unified ice hockey team, one from each side of the border, who had carried it up the stairs.

Which company's 1,218 drones formed the Olympic rings in a then-record show for the 2018 Games?

Intel had filmed its Shooting Star drones the previous December. A live flight planned for the opening ceremony was cancelled at the last minute, so television viewers saw the recording.

Which K-pop boy band performed 'Growl' and 'Power' at the 2018 Winter Olympics closing ceremony?

EXO shared the bill with the rapper CL of the girl group 2NE1, who performed 'I Am the Best'. A Dutch DJ's afterparty set then closed the show.

Which John Lennon song did four South Korean singers perform at the 2018 Olympic opening ceremony?

Imagine was sung while families from the host province lit one another's candles. As the song ended, five children released a balloon shaped like a dove.

Which sister of North Korea's leader shook the South Korean president's hand at the 2018 Olympics?

Kim Yo-jong was the first member of North Korea's ruling family to visit the South since the Korean War. The next day she handed over a personal letter from her brother.

Which league kept its players out of the 2018 Olympics after sending them to five straight Games?

NHL bosses barred everyone under contract, even players who were not on a top-flight roster. Europe's leagues paused instead, led by a 33-day break in Russia's KHL.

The USA's 2018 women's ice hockey gold was its first since the sport's Olympic debut in which city?

Nagano 1998 was followed by four straight golds for Canada. The Americans ended that run in the 2018 final, which went past overtime to a penalty shootout.

Which forward's overtime goal won the 2018 Olympic men's ice hockey final for the Russian team?

Kirill Kaprizov, the youngest player on the roster, scored to beat Germany 4–3. It was the first Olympic gold for Russian hockey players since 1992, and the best result in German hockey history.

Which skip led the United States to its first Olympic curling gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics?

John Shuster had been dropped from the national high-performance programme, so he formed a team nicknamed The Rejects. In Pyeongchang they lost four of their first six games, then won five in a row.

Which drug, behind Maria Sharapova's 2016 ban, cost a Russian curler his 2018 Olympic bronze?

Meldonium turned up in Alexander Krushelnitskiy's sample, costing him and his wife and partner Anastasia Bryzgalova their mixed doubles medals. He was later banned for four years.

Which 17-year-old overslept on the morning he won snowboard slopestyle gold at the 2018 Olympics?

Red Gerard had stayed up late watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, then lost his jacket and had to borrow his roommate's. He still became the first Winter Olympic medallist born in the 2000s.

Which snowboarding event replaced parallel slalom to make its Olympic debut at the 2018 Games?

Big air sends each rider off one huge ramp to land a single trick. Parallel slalom, dropped to make room for it, had lasted just one Winter Games after its own debut in 2014.

Which skier left the 2018 Olympics with 15 career medals, passing Ole Einar Bjørndalen's Winter Games record?

Marit Bjørgen took five medals in Pyeongchang, ending with gold in the 30 km on the final day of the Games. She announced her retirement six weeks later.

Which 15-year-old beat her own training partner to women's figure skating gold at the 2018 Olympics?

Alina Zagitova placed every jump in the second half of her programmes, which earned a bonus on each one. That was enough to push Evgenia Medvedeva, who shared her coach, into silver.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won 2018 Olympic ice dance gold to which Baz Luhrmann film's music?

Moulin Rouge brought the Canadians a fifth Olympic medal, more than any figure skaters before them. They toned down one risqué lift for the team event, then restored the original for the ice dance final.

Which pairs skater finally won Olympic gold at her fifth Games in 2018, alongside Bruno Massot?

Aljona Savchenko and Massot were only fourth after the short programme, then set a world record score in the free skate. Her first Olympics, in 2002, had been for Ukraine with another partner.

Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land which jump at the Olympics, in 2018?

The triple Axel had been landed at the Olympics by only two women before Nagasu. She hit hers in the free skate of the team event.

Which skier teamed with Kikkan Randall to win the USA's first Olympic cross-country gold in 2018?

Jessie Diggins and Randall won the team sprint ahead of Sweden. It was also the first Olympic medal of any colour for American women in cross-country skiing.

Which skier, an eight-time overall World Cup champion, took his first Olympic golds in 2018?

Marcel Hirscher won the combined, his first race of the Games, and then the giant slalom. His only earlier Olympic medal was a slalom silver four years before.

Which biathlete carried France's flag at the 2018 Olympics and then won three gold medals?

Martin Fourcade won the pursuit, the mixed relay and a mass start in which he and Germany's Simon Schempp were given the same time. Four years earlier he had lost that race in a photo finish.

Which sprinter won three cross-country golds on his Olympic debut at the 2018 Winter Olympics?

Johannes Klæbo's sprint victory made him the youngest man to win an Olympic cross-country title. Eight years later he won six golds at a single Games.

What weather postponed the men's downhill and two women's alpine races at the 2018 Winter Olympics?

High winds grew so strong on 14 February that spectators were sent indoors and every activity in the Olympic Park was suspended. The men's downhill was finally run four days late.

Which African nation made its 2018 Winter Olympic debut with a bobsleigh driven by a former hurdler?

Nigeria sent three bobsledders and a skeleton racer, all of them women. Driver Seun Adigun, born in Chicago, had run the 100 metres hurdles at the London 2012 Summer Games.

What hit the 2018 Olympic opening ceremony, knocking out stadium Wi-Fi, televisions and ticketing?

A cyberattack later dubbed Olympic Destroyer is believed to have been the work of Sandworm, a Russian military hacking unit. Staff restored most systems before the ceremony ended, then rebuilt the whole network.

Elizabeth Swaney, a Californian, skied the 2018 Olympic halfpipe with no tricks for which country?

Hungary also won its first Winter Olympic gold at the same Games, in the men's short track relay. Swaney, who placed last, had qualified by attending every World Cup event over two seasons.

Which South Korean president, a son of North Korean refugees, opened the 2018 Winter Olympics?

Moon Jae-in had been elected the previous year, after his predecessor was impeached and removed from office. His parents had fled the northern port of Hungnam during the Korean War.

Japan's Noriaki Kasai reached a record eighth Winter Olympics in 2018, competing in which sport?

Ski jumping had already made Kasai its oldest Olympic medallist four years earlier, when he took silver on the large hill at 41. His first Games were back in 1992.

Which British slider became the first athlete to defend an Olympic skeleton title, in 2018?

Lizzy Yarnold was also the first Briton to defend a Winter Olympic title in any sport. A former heptathlete, she had taken up sliding only ten years earlier.

Which coastal city near Pyeongchang staged the 2018 Olympic skating, curling and ice hockey events?

Gangneung built an Olympic Park with four indoor arenas set close together, leaving the mountains around Pyeongchang for the snow and sliding sports.

Which Japanese speed skater won the 2018 Olympic 500 m, then hugged her tearful South Korean rival?

Nao Kodaira became the first Japanese woman to win Olympic speed skating gold, in an Olympic record time. The home favourite she beat and then consoled, Lee Sang-hwa, was also her friend.

Which US figure skater became the first openly gay American to win a Winter Olympic medal, in 2018?

Adam Rippon won his bronze in the team event and then placed 10th in the men's singles. He retired from competition later that year.

Which country's two 16-year-olds won 2018 Olympic bronzes, its first Winter medals since 1992?

New Zealand's Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Nico Porteous, a snowboarder and a freestyle skier, became the country's youngest Olympic medallists. Its only earlier Winter medal was a silver.