At this moment, the Olympics 2018 medals table is still mostly a European affair, with Germany, Norway and the Netherlands beating the rest of the pack. Canada and the US close out the top five.
As we head into the second week of these Winter Olympics, history suggests that there will be a shakeup of the leader board. The Netherlands, who get most of their medals from skating, are bound to drop.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Leading the gold medal count at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang:<br>🇩🇪: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇<br>🇳🇴: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇<br>🇳🇱: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇<br>🇺🇸: 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇<br>🇨🇦: 🥇🥇🥇🥇<a href="https://t.co/zPOgEIZd5U">https://t.co/zPOgEIZd5U</a></p>— The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/964453198835671041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Norwegians are always the ones to watch in any Winter Olympics, with a whopping 118 gold medals to their name (and 332 in their history). The United States boasts 284 medals heading into this year’s competition, 96 of which were gold, while hosts South Korea have 53.
<b> Norway</b>
The one country that stands out in there, Norway, only has some 5.3 million inhabitants, but every four years, they are there at any Winter Olympics to take the gold medals from everyone else.
For everyone that has ever travelled to Norway, this comes as no surprise. Most people are doing sports (running is extremely popular) and TV shows sports on 50% of all channels. Given that the country is covered in snow and ice most of the year, you can guess which sports they excel at.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Norway still leads in total medals, but the Germans have a hold on the gold medal tally <a href="https://t.co/tT2PD8Gjbe">https://t.co/tT2PD8Gjbe</a></p>— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SInow/status/964554245700771841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At Norway’s Holmenkollen Ski Museum in Oslo, there is a old saying engraved in the wall that says Norwegians are “born with skis on their feet.”
Source:
