Korea Brings Home Best-Ever Winter Olympics Haul with 17 Medals

Athletes attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province on Sunday. /Newsis

Korea finished the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with its best-ever tally of 17 medals as the curtain came down on the global sporting event on Sunday. It won five gold, eight silver and four bronze medals.

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The country's previous record of 14 for a Winter Olympics was set in Vancouver in 2010, where Korea bagged six gold, six silver and two bronze medals.

For a Summer Olympics, Korea achieved its best performance when it hosted the games in Seoul in 1988, garnering 33 medals. 

Korea performed well in its traditional stronghold of speed skating, winning four of its gold medals in the discipline.

In short track skating, Lim Hyo-jun took the gold medal in the men's 1,500-m race, Choi Min-Jeong Won the women's 1,500 m, and the women's team won the 3,000-m relay, adding to one silver and two bronze medals for the Koreans.

In speed skating, Lee Seung-hoon earned the country one gold medal in men's mass start. Korea also took four silver medals and two bronze medals. Promisingly, male skaters had top-five finishes in all seven races. 

Korea also shone in a number of disciplines in which it had previously not been competitive, winning its first ever Olympic medals in skeleton (gold), bobsleigh (silver), curling (silver) and snowboarding (bronze).