PYEONGCHANG: Lim Hyo-jun has given the host country its first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Olympics. The South Korean crossed the line first in the men’s 1,500-metre short track, setting off a huge roar from the capacity crowd at Gangneung Ice Arena.

Defending Olympic champion Charles Hamelin of Canada was penalized for impeding and finished far back anyway.

Lim surged past Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands and finished about two blade lengths ahead in an Olympic-record time of 2 minutes, 10.485 seconds.

Knegt settled for the silver medal, while the bronze went to Semen Elistratov, who became Russia’s first medalist of the games.

The Koreans made Olympic history with the puck dropping in their first Olympic game with their women’s hockey lineup featuring three North Koreans under an unprecedented agreement.

And a North Korean forward nearly gave the historic combined team a lead. Jong Su Hyon shot the puck from the left circle on a power play in the first period only to catch the crossbar, glancing off harmlessly.

Then Switzerland responded by jumping out to a 2-0 lead, scoring 61 seconds apart midway through the period Trailing didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of home fans, who kept chanting in support with the North Korean cheerleaders rinkside leading the cheers. During a timeout, the cheerleaders tried to start fans doing the wave only to see that trickle out as play resumed.Meanwhile, the Dutch resumed where they left off four years ago, dominating the Olympic speedskating Oval and getting a clean sweep of medals in the women’s 3,000 meters, with outsider Carlijn Achtereekte leading the way.

Achtereekte raced in the first half of the program with the also-rans, but her time of 3 minutes, 59.21 seconds was good as gold as double 3,000-metre Olympic champion Ireen Wust finished .08 seconds behind.

Bronze went to Antoinette de Jong for the amazing Dutch sweep. Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier wasn’t just good. She was perfect. The 24-year-old budding biathlon star hit all 10 targets to win her first gold medal in the women’s 7.5-kilometre sprint on Saturday night at the Pyeongchang Games.

Dahlmeier had won five of six possible medals at last year’s World Championships. Coincidentally, the one event she didn’t win was this one.

She appeared exhausted as she finished, falling to the ground, her face inches from the snow and her skis spread apart in a frog-like position.

Only three women out of 86 competitors hit all 10 targets on a cold and blustery night. However, the other two failed to crack the top 15 because they took too long to shoot those targets.

Norway’s Marte Olsbu captured the silver medal and Veronika Vitkova from the Czech Republic took home the bronze.South Korea recovered from a crash to earn a place in the women’s 3,000-metre relay final at short-track speedskating. The South Koreans won their semifinal heat on Saturday night, drawing wild cheers from the home crowd at the packed Gangneung Ice Arena.

Canada also advanced to Tuesday’s final, along with China and Italy. The U.S. women didn’t qualify for the event.American teenager Maame Biney is safely through to the quarterfinals of the 500 meters in her short-track Olympic debut. The 18-year-old speedskater finished second in her heat behind China’s Fan Kexin on Saturday night. Biney was born in Ghana and moved to the U.S. as a 5-year-old.

The other American, Lana Gehring, was eliminated after finishing third in her heat. Only the top two skaters in each heat advance.

Among the big names moving on to Tuesday’s quarterfinals are Canadian teammates Kim Boutin and Marianne St-Gelais, Italy’s Arianna Fontana, Britain’s Elise Christie and South Korea’s Choi Min-jeong.

Shim Suk-hee of South Korea was a three-time medallist at the Sochi Games but was eliminated on Saturday after finishing third in her heat.

Meanwhile, speedskater Shani Davis declined to talk to reporters for a second day in a row about the controversy over how the U.S. Olympic Team chose its flag-bearer for the opening ceremony.

Davis, who skipped the ceremony, trained Saturday but walked by journalists afterward without stopping to answer questions.

After luger Erin Hamlin was picked to carry the flag, a tweet from Davis’s account said Team USA “dishonourably” used a coin toss to make the decision and added the #BlackHistoryMonth2018 hashtag. Davis is black and Hamlin is white. The coin toss happened after they tied 4-4 in a vote by fellow athletes.

Team spokesman Matt Whewell says Davis is intent on staying focused on his Olympic races for now. His first race is Tuesday’s 1,500 meters.

American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins says nerves may have gotten the best of her before the women’s 15-kilometre (9.3-mile) skiathlon, causing her to throw up shortly before the race.

Diggins was third in the World Cup rankings coming in but finished fifth on Saturday at the Pyeongchang Games.

The 26-year-old says, “I need to work on a few things to manage stress.”

She says she also struggled with cramping in her triceps during the race and will reconsider her hydration plan moving forward. Overall, though, she says she did the best she could and got the most out of her body.

Diggins says it wasn’t her best race, but she still feels like she’s in a “good place” to become the first American cross-country skier to win a medal since Bill Koch in 1976.

Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla won the first gold medal of the Pyeongchang Games and Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjoergen took silver in the women’s 15-kilometre skiathlon to become the most decorated female Winter Olympian ever.

Bjoergen captured her 11th career medal on Saturday, breaking a three-way tie with Russian Raisa Smetanina and Italian Stefania Belmondo.

Kalla won the race by more than seven seconds, breaking away from the pack in the final 2 kilometres to avenge her loss to Bjoergen in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2018