Norway bags two golds to stay top of medals table at Pyeongchang Games

Pyeongchang - Snow sports power Norway gleaned two out of three gold medals on offer to stay top of the medals table at the Pyeongchang Winter Games on Monday.

Havard Lorentzen became the first Norwegian winner of the Olympic speed skating men's 500m in 70 years as he took the title with an Olympic record.

Lorentzen broke the Olympic record in a time of 34.41 seconds, beating Cha Min Kyu of South Korea to second place. Gao Tingyu of China won bronze with a time of 34.65 seconds, becoming the first male Chinese speed skater to win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games.

"It's the best race I've ever done. It's been 20 years since the last gold medal (for) Norway in speed skating, so it's been a while," Lorentzen said. "It's time for Norway to step up on the top of the podium again. It feels so good to do that today."

Norway had more to cheer on when its ski-jumping quartet led from the start to claim a first-ever Olympic men's team event gold in an emphatic style.

Daniel Andre Tande, Andreas Stjernen, Johann Andre Forfang and Robert Johansson amassed 1,098.5 points for the big victory at the Alpensia Ski Jumping Centre.

"I really like the team competitions. I think we're really good friends, travelling a lot of days during the year together," Johansson said after the competition.

"This was a huge goal before the season, so to do it in the Olympics after saying it in front of the season, it's huge for us," Forfang said of the victory.

Elsewhere, Canada and Germany shared gold in thrilling two-man bobsleigh.

In women's ice hockey, Canada and the United States will clash against each other in the final, a replay of their showdown in Sochi four years ago. The United States knocked down Finland 5-0 while Canada sent the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) packing with the same score in Monday's semifinals.

The two powerhouses in the women's ice hockey have been trading world and Olympic titles since the 1990s.

The United States vowed not to let the gold slip away in Thursday's final.

"This team's ready. This team is full of passion, energy, excitement. We've worked really hard this tournament, the last four years and our entire lives to put ourselves in a position to go after a gold medal and that's a position we're in right now, so we're excited," said US forward Meghan Duggan.

Now Norway leads the medals table on 11 gold, 9 silver and 8 bronze medals, followed by Germany and Canada with 10 and 6 golds apiece. China is placed at 19th on 5 silver and 2 bronze medals.