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Olympics gold medal count: Norway leads

On the first day when Olympic medals were awarded, Norway led the gold medal count, and took home medals in the women's skiathlon, the men's biathlon, and slopestyle snowboarding.

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Rich Clabaugh/The Christian Science Monitor
Top Olympic medal winners as of Sun. Feb. 9.

Forget the Sochi toilets and unfinished hotels. It's time to focus on the Olympic games.

The Sochi Olympics gold medal count began Saturday with Norway taking the lead with four of the first 98 medals to be awarded.

Norway brought home two gold medals, one in the women's skiathlon (cross-counry skiing) and one in the men's biathlon.

Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen became the oldest individual gold medalist at the Winter Olympics, winning the 10-kilometer sprint — his seventh career gold. And Marit Bjoergen,captured the women's 15-kilometer skiathlon for her fourth Olympic title.

Norway also captured a bronze medal in the women's cross-country race, and a silver in slopestyle snowboarding.

Canadian sisters Jusine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe took the gold and silver in the freestyle moguls competition, edging out US favorite Hannah Kearney. But over on the slopestyle course, it was Canadian Mark McMorris who was disappointed to take home a bronze.

The Netherlands finished the day tied with Canada in the medal count. The Dutch got three medals by sweeping s the 5,000-meter speedskating competition.

Sven Kramer set an Olympic record in bring home the gold. Kramer has been bedeviled at the Olympics, notably in Vancouver when his coach pointed him to the wrong lane in the 10,000. But on this day he surged around the oval, winning in 6 minutes, 10.76 seconds and leading a Dutch sweep in which he was followed by Jan Blokhuijsen and Jorrit Bergsma.

The United States took two medals, a gold in the slopestyle snowboarding (a new Olympic event) and a bronze in women's freestyle moguls.

Sage Kotsenburg, who grew up in Park City, Utah, was the surprise medalist, upsetting the Canadian favorites of Max Parrot and Mark McMorris, who was nursing a broken rib.

American Hannah Kearney took home a bronze, but came up short in her bid to become the first woman to get back-to-back gold in 22-year history of Olympic moguls.

Austria took home a single medal Saturday, in the biathlon. Sweden finished second in the women's skiathlon. And the Czech Republic took home the bronze in the biathlon.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this article.

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