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Pyeongchang Games by the Numbers: Japan's Kodaira Sets Speedskating Record, Norway Leads Medal Count

Japanese speed skater Nao Kodaira breaks an Olympic record, Alpine skier Marcel Hirscher continues to dominate and Norway is on top in the medal count. Here is the Pyeongchang Games by the numbers:

36.94 Japan’s Nao Kodaira smashed the Olympic speedskating record in the women’s 500-meter with a time of 36.94 seconds. She beating the defending champion, South Korea’s Lee Sang-hwa, who took the silver with a time of 37.33 seconds while the Czech Republic’s Karolina Erbanova was third at 37.34.

The U.S. women's hopes for a medal in the race dissolved, with Brittany Bowe finishing fifth, and her teammate Heather Bergsma, 11th. A year ago, Bergsma appeared to be America’s best hope for ending its speedskating struggles, but in the past year, she only won one World Cup race. And in her first two races in the Olympics, in the 1000m and 1500m, she finished in eighth place in both.

Earlier in the Games, U.S. short-track speed skater John-Henry Krueger took silver in the men's 1000-meter, winning the United States’ first individual speed skating medal since 2010.

2 The world’s best male Alpine skier, Marcel Hirscher, won his second gold medal of the Pyeongchang Olympics in the giant slalom. Hirscher took his first at the Alpine combined event earlier in the Games. Hirscher has a good chance at a third gold medal in his best event, the slalom, which is scheduled for Thursday. Going into the Games, Hirscher had won six consecutive World Cup overall titles and 55 World Cup races but an Olympic gold had eluded him until now. The U.S.’s Ted Ligety, the giant slalom winner in Sochi, finished 15.

37 Norway is currently leading the medal count in Pyeongchang with 26 — nine gold, nine silver and eight bronze. The country is on pace to pass a milestone: the most medals by one nation at the Olympic Winter Games. Norway would own the title if it wins 38 medals. Team USA currently owns the record, with 37. So far in Pyeongchang it has 10, behind the Olympic Athletes from Russia, who have 11. Germany has 18, Canada, 16 and the Netherlands, 13.

4 France’s Martin Fourcade won his fourth Olympic gold medal in a photo finish in the men’s 15 kilometer mass start biathlon. Germany’s Simon Schempp was directly behind him. Fourcade couldn’t believe his victory: “I’m still waiting for them to tell me that I’m not the winner,” Fourcade said Sunday. This was Fourcade’s second metal of the Pyeongchang Games — he also won gold in the men’s 12.5 kilometer biathlon pursuit - and his sixth Olympic medal overall. And it’s his second photo finish, but the last time, at the Sochi Games four years ago, he lost the gold medal by just three centimeters in the mass start.

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Lars Baron/Getty Images
Martin Fourcade of France celebrates winning the gold medal during the Men's 15km Mass Start Biathlon on day nine of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Alpensia Biathlon Centre on Feb. 18, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea.

4 Unlucky four? Called “tetraphobia,” the superstition comes about because the word for “four” in Korean is a homophone for “death.”

128.51 Oleksandr Abramenko’s gold-medal overall score in the men’s freestyle skiing aerials in Pyeongchang, giving Ukraine its first medal of the Winter Games and first ever freestyle skiing medal. China's Jia Zongyang won silver with a score just a hair below Abramenko’s. Russian athlete Ilia Burov won bronze.

5 Norway won its fifth cross-country skiing gold medal of the Pyeongchang Games when Oystein Braaten won gold in the men’s ski slopestyle. American Nick Goepper added a silver medal to the bronze he won four years ago in Sochi, while his teammate Gus Kenworthy finished last.

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