A lot has happened in the year since, and most of those winter sports are currently in the midst of their World Championships. (How about Lindsey Vonn getting the bronze in the final race of her career?) But that doesn't make the PyeongChang Games any less unforgettable. For me, these are some of the most memorable stories/moments:
The Koreas march/compete together: I'm not going to get into the recent attempts to form combined Korean teams in a number of sports (they're two separate countries with completely different ideologies, so having them compete together, which is definitely politically-motivated, makes about as much sense as a combined USA-Canada team). But watching them march into the stadium together at the Opening Ceremony was definitely a poignant moment. And it was definitely cool watching the joint women's hockey team take the ice.
American gold in cross country, curling: After NBC confused the first week of the Olympics with the X Games and gave me more than enough snowboarding to cover me until Beijing 2022, Olympic coverage actually broke out during Week 2. And Week 2 featured two wonderful, unexpected American gold medals. Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the women's team sprint in cross country skiing, then the men's curling squad upset Sweden and capped their incredible run with a gold medal. It was the first for the U.S. in each sport.
Russia "suspended", but not really: Russia had been in the IOC's cross-hairs for its doping issues for more than two years, and when the damning McLaren Report was issued, it was clear they had to do something regarding Russia's participation in PyeongChang. Their solution was to suspend the Russian Olympic Committee, but still allow their athletes to compete as "Olympic Athletes From Russia." Despite that "punishment" (which ended at the Closing Ceremony, even though Russian athletes failed drug tests during the Olympics), they still fielded a full team and won their first hockey gold since 1992 (although technically, it wasn't Russia that won the hockey tournament).
An NHL-less hockey tournament: Speaking of the hockey tournament, we didn't quite know what to expect after the NHL, IIHF and IOC failed to reach an agreement to send NHL players to PyeongChang. So, perhaps, it shouldn't be surprising that there were upsets throughout, capped by Germany's run to the gold medal game that included wins over Canada and Sweden. Was the level of play the same as it would've been had the NHL guys been there? No. Did the tournament's quality suffer? Probably not as much as many of us initially thought.
Oops, I did it again: Unlike the men's tournament, the women's hockey tournament went exactly the way everyone thought it would. With the USA and Canada meeting in the gold medal game for the third straight Olympics (and the fifth time in six all-time tournaments). That final was an absolute classic, though. It went to a shootout, where Jocelyn Lamoureux won it with a sick move she called "Oops, I did it again," giving the Americans their first women's hockey gold in 20 years.
Alina Zagitova vs. Yevgenia Medvedeva: Our latest Russian figure skating rivalry featured Alina Zagitova and Yevgenia Medvedeva. Both were technically brilliant. Medvedeva had the artistry, while Zagitova's jumps were ridiculous (they showed video of her practice where she did five triples in a row like it was nothing). Personally, I preferred Medvedeva. But it was Zagitova who got the gold.
Marit Bjoergen becomes the all-time winningest Winter Olympian: Bjoergen won five medals at the PyeongChang Games, bringing her career total to 15. She took a bronze behind Diggins & Randall in the team sprint, which was her record-breaking 14th. Bjoergen then tied the record for career Winter Olympic gold medals with eight by winning the 30 km on the final day of the Games.
New events leave their mark: For the first time, the Winter Olympics featured more than 100 events. That was because of the addition of new disciplines such as big air snowboarding (which I found to be incredibly dumb), the alpine skiing team event, and mixed doubles curling, which was the first sport to get underway the day before the Opening Ceremony. And, unlike most of the new events/sports for Tokyo 2020 that seem unnecessary and/or forced, they were natural fits that seamlessly blended into the Winter Olympic program.
Home team success: Prior to their turn as hosts, all of South Korea's Winter Olympic medals had come in either speed skating (primarily short track, but also long track) or figure skating. In PyeongChang, though, South Korea's 17 medals included a gold in skeleton and silvers in bobsled, curling and snowboarding, all of which were the nation's first in that sport.
Two golds in two different sports: There have been two-sport Winter Olympians before. Ole Einar Bjoerndahlen did both cross country and biathlon in Salt Lake City, and there was a Dutch speed skater who did both short track and long track on the same day in Sochi. But what Ester Ledecka did still defies belief. A snowboarder by trade, she entered the Super G in alpine skiing and ended up winning a gold medal that was so unexpected, NBC had already left the event, assuming the medals had been decided. Then it was time for her "regular" event, the snowboarding giant slalom. She won that, too, becoming the first Winter Olympian to win gold medals in two different sports at the same Games.
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