The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics began on Feb. 8, 2018 and will end Feb. 25. This time span allows many different countries a chance to catch up with the current leading ones, and gives us, as viewers, the opportunity to watch in excitement and anticipation to see which countries will be victorious. The top five leading countries, as of Feb. 16, are: Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada. The United States currently has a total of eight medals: five gold, one silver, and two bronze. Hopefully by the end of the games, the United States will have the highest medal count.

Red Gerard was the first athlete on Team USA to win a gold medal. Gerard is on the US snowboarding team and fell on his other two tries at one of the snowboarding courses. On his final try at the slopestyle snowboarding course, he got a score of 87.16. At age 17, this is an incredible accomplishment for Gerard. He will have a chance to make history in the new, upcoming Big Air contest because there has never been a snowboarder who has earned multiple medals at a single Olympic game.

Chloe Kim,17, is another Team USA athlete that won a gold medal. Kim is a snowboarder and was too young to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics, but is extremely excited to participate after her silver victory in the 2014 X Games. On her first run in the women’s halfpipe, she earned a score of 93.75. On Kim’s second try, though, she earned an amazing score of 98.25. She also landed two 1080s, which is a difficult skill to master in snowboarding.

Shaun White, a famous past gold medalist, also won a gold medal. White won the gold medal in the men’s halfpipe by earning a score of 97.75 on his third run. By achieving this, he is now the first man to earn three snowboarding gold medals. The medal White earned was also the United States’s hundredth gold medal in Winter Olympics history.

There has also been four other medalists on the Team USA. Jamie Anderson won gold in the women’s snowboard slopestyle, Chris Mazdzer silver in men’s singles luge, Arielle Gold bronze in the women’s snowboard halfpipe. Team USA won bronze in the figure skating team event. The United States is doing amazingly well at the Winter Olympics, and they will hopefully win many more games to come.