20 Winter Olympic Stories That Sound Too Good to Be True—But Aren’t

Eric Heiden won all the men’s speed skating events at the 1980 Lake Placid Games, dominating both the 500-meter sprint and the 10,000-meter endurance race over the same nine-day period. The cyclist set four Olympic records and one world record while excelling in both short- and long-distance races.

In Sochi in 2014, the Dutch speed skaters swept the podium in four separate events, winning gold, silver, and bronze in each, for a total of eight medals. The previous record was five medals in 1964.

Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu became the first figure skater to score over 100 points in the men’s short program when he earned 101.45 points in Sochi in 2014. That score seemed to come out of nowhere, as if the scoring system had been recalibrated overnight, and he achieved it while representing a nation still rebuilding after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Norway’s Marit Bjørgen retired from cross-country skiing with 15 Winter Olympic medals from five different Games, including eight gold medals. In Sochi in 2014 alone, she won three gold medals, earning more medals than all the other teams combined.

Ole Einar Bjørndalen added two more gold medals in Sochi in 2014, bringing his career total to 13 medals, and he did so at the age of 40 in biathlon. For those who aren’t familiar with the sport, biathlon combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting—an incredible feat for anyone. 

Czech athlete Ester Ledecká won gold medals in two completely different sports at PyeongChang in 2018, first taking the gold in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding, then surprising everyone by winning the super-G in alpine skiing. She beat the world’s top female skier by one-hundredth of a second while wearing ski goggles so fogged up that she could barely see.

Austria’s Toni Sailer won the 1956 giant slalom by 6.2 seconds, which may not seem like much until you consider that alpine ski races are typically decided by fractions of a second. He also won all three alpine events that year, achieving a level of dominance that no one has matched since.

Sweden’s Nils van der Poel shattered the world record in the 5,000-meter speed skating event in Beijing in 2022 with a time of 6:08.84, then returned a few days later to break the 10,000-meter record by nearly two seconds. He had given up competing in major events to train on his own using methods that no one else had tried.

Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst won individual gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games, from 2006 to 2022, becoming the first athlete in any sport to achieve this feat. She set an Olympic record in the 1,500-meter race at the age of 35, at a time when most speed skaters have already retired.

Canadian Sarah Nurse set the scoring record for the women’s Olympic hockey tournament with 18 points in Beijing in 2022, while also scoring the game-winning goal that secured the gold medal and becoming the first Black woman to win Olympic gold in hockey. She rewrote the record books and broke a historic barrier during the same tournament.

Dan Jansen finally won the Olympic gold medal on his fourth attempt in 1994, setting a world record in the 1,000-meter race after three previous Olympic Games marked by falls and bitter disappointments. He skated with his late sister’s name written inside his skate, mourning her death from leukemia while competing at the highest level.

Viktor Ahn won three gold medals for Russia in Sochi in 2014, after winning four for South Korea under his birth name, Ahn Hyun-soo, making him a six-time Olympic champion who has represented two different countries. His change of nationality sparked controversy and raised questions about doping, but he has continued to dominate short-track speed skating.

Hanni Wenzel won Liechtenstein—a microstate with a population of about 30,000—its very first Olympic gold medals by winning the slalom and giant slalom events in Lake Placid in 1980. Her brother Andreas added a silver and a bronze medal in the men’s events, meaning that this small principality outperformed countries with millions of inhabitants in terms of medals.

South Korea’s Kim Yun-mi won the gold medal in the 3,000-meter short-track relay in Lillehammer in 1994, when she was only 13 years old, making her the youngest Winter Olympic gold medalist in history. She competed against adult women in one of the most unpredictable events in winter sports, where falls are common.

Norway won 16 gold medals in Beijing in 2022, setting the record for the most gold medals won by a single country at a single Winter Olympics. This country of about five million people dominated the medal count despite having smaller teams in many sports compared to much larger nations.

Italy’s Armin Zöggeler won a medal in luge at six consecutive Olympic Games, from 1994 to 2014, maintaining his high level of performance in a sport where athletes race down an icy track at speeds exceeding 130 km/h. Over the course of his two-decade medal streak, he went from silver to gold and then back to silver.

American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor has become the most decorated bobsledder of all time with five Olympic medals, winning gold as the pilot in Beijing in 2022 despite having to quarantine due to COVID-19 just a few days before the event. She overcame the illness and mental stress to claim her fifth medal.

Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White shattered the world records in ice dancing in Sochi in 2014, with a score of 78.89 in the short dance and 195.52 overall, thereby winning the first-ever U.S. gold medal in this discipline. 

Sweden’s Frida Karlsson won the gold medal in cross-country skiing at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, only to see her medal literally break in half during the celebrations that followed the medal ceremony. She reacted to this strange incident by laughing and holding up the two pieces to an enthusiastic crowd.

Austria’s Anna Gasser traveled to Milan-Cortina 2026 hoping to win her third consecutive Olympic gold medal in snowboard big air, a sport that only became an official Olympic event in 2018. She had already won the two competitions held so far with 1,800-degree spins that redefined what the judges thought was possible.