Winners and losers of PyeongChang 2018 so far

With the 2018 Winter Olympics just past the halfway point, we look back at the big winners, and unfortunate losers, so far in PyeongChang.

Winner: Youth movement

The kids? Yeah, they're alright. PyeongChang 2018 has witnessed the usual collection of jaw-dropping athletic achievements that define the Olympic Games, only this time, many of those moments have come courtesy of those not yet old enough to order a beer or drive a car.

American snowboarders Chloe Kim and Red Gerard, both 17, threw down in their disciplines - the halfpipe and slopestyle, respectively - to win gold. Kim arrived in PyeongChang with massive expectations, and promptly thrived; Gerard, meanwhile, knocked off more established favorites to capture his spot atop the podium.

Mainly, though, each of them just had fun, which often seems to get overlooked; Kim, who saw her social media following skyrocket, was constantly tweeting between runs. Welcome to 2018.

Related - Hype is real: Chloe Kim blew away even our wildest expectations

American figure skaters Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou didn't capture medals like their compatriots, but the teenagers both made Olympic history; Chen, 18, landed an unparalleled six quads in his free skate, while Zhou, 17, became the first skater to ever connect on a quad lutz in the Olympics.

The future is now.

Loser: Shaun White

Yes, Shaun White delivered one of the greatest halfpipe performances of all time when he dropped a massive 97.75 score on his final run to capture the third gold medal of his illustrious career. Strictly on the snow, it was mission accomplished for the 31-year-old.

In the aftermath of his win, though, White provided a grotesquely flippant response when asked about the sexual harassment lawsuit that Lena Zawaideh, a former member of his band, leveled against him in 2016.

The lawsuit, which claimed, among other things, that White made vulgar sexual remarks and sent sexually explicit images to Zawaideh, was settled in May of 2017 for an undisclosed amount. Yet White still branded the story as "gossip" in his post-medal winning press conference.

He later apologized for his choice of words, but the backlash had already been swift against someone who was branded - recklessly, in hindsight - as the feel-good U.S. athlete of the Olympics.

Winner: Ester Ledecka

A no-brainer. This is arguably the most incredible story of these Winter Olympics so far.

Ester Ledecka, a 22-year-old Czech snowboarder, made history simply by competing in a skiing event, and after she hits the slopes with her board next week, where she is a gold medal favorite in the parallel giant slalom, she'll officially become the first athlete in Olympic history to compete in both skiing and snowboarding.

Turns out Ledecka, who had a mere 19 World Cup skiing races to her name, wasn't there to make up the numbers in the super-G. To the surprise of everyone - including NBC, which cut away from the race ahead of her run - she went out and won the damn thing.

Related: Did Czech snowboarder Ledecka really win super-G gold on borrowed skis?

Her look of astonishment when she crossed the line and (very slowly) began to realize that she put down the fastest time - by 0.01 seconds - will long be remembered as one of the best moments of PyeongChang 2018.

Loser: Charles Hamelin

Decorated Canadian short track speedskater Charles Hamelin arrived in South Korea with the expectation he would add to his already impressive haul of four Olympic medals. A gold medalist in the 500 meters in Vancouver and the 1,500 meters in Sochi, the veteran has endured a forgettable opening week in PyeongChang.

Hamelin, 33, has been disqualified in both of his events so far, including the 1,500 meters. In the volatile sport of short track, where every inch of ice is contested and the slightest nudge can cause chaos - and disqualification - that's far from unusual, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing.

Hamelin, competing in his fourth and final Olympics, does still have the 500-meter race and the 5,000-meter relay to salvage things.

Winner: Yuzuru Hanyu

When you accomplish something that hasn't been done in 66 years, you're going to make appearances on lists just like this one. In defending his Olympic gold medal in figure skating, Japanese star Yuzuru Hanyu became the first man to accomplish that feat since Dick Button in 1952.

Just weeks ago, his participation in South Korea was in doubt. A serious ankle injury kept him off the ice until January, and he wasn't even attempting quadruple jumps, the key to victory in men's figure skating, until a few weeks before the Olympics.

Loser: Katie Couric

It was more amusing than insulting, but the NBC host was forced to apologize after she claimed during the opening ceremony that the Netherlands' dominance of long track speedskating was an upshot of the country's many "canals that can freeze in the winter."

"So for as long as those canals have existed, the Dutch have skated on them to get from place to place, to race each other and also to have fun," she said.

Ridicule swiftly followed, and Couric ultimately addressed her blunder:

Winner: Mark McMorris

Redemption stories are very often overplayed in sports. Almost every athlete, at one point or another, faces adversity of some kind, and in our incessant search for narratives, we can latch on to a dime-a-dozen story and brand it as a remarkable comeback.

That couldn't be further from the truth with Mark McMorris.

The Canadian, 24, won bronze in slopestyle snowboarding earlier this month, just 11 months after a harrowing crash left him in a medically induced coma, fighting for his life.

McMorris, now with multiple Olympic bronze medals to his name, was left with 17 broken bones, a collapsed lung, and a ruptured spleen after he collided with a tree while filming in the Canadian backcountry.

Related: McMorris thankful for bronze after 2017 crash left him 'pretty much dead'

"It's just a reminder to me of the hard work I put in to come back to snowboarding," McMorris told Sportsnet's Arash Madani after winning his slopestyle medal. "I'm thankful I snowboard for a living, because I was pretty much dead a year ago."

Now there's a comeback story that captures the true spirit of the Olympics.

Loser: Russian athletes

Unable to compete under their own flag as punishment for the nation's now infamous state-run doping program, Russian athletes, operating in PyeongChang under the "Olympic Athletes from Russia" banner, have yet to stand atop the podium.

And with Sunday's news that one of their athletes has failed a drug test - reported to be curling bronze medalist Alexander Krushelnitsky - things could yet get worse for the maligned group.

There's still time to turn things around of course. The men's hockey team is the tournament favorite, while prodigious teen figure skaters Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova are destined for a titanic gold-medal battle in women's singles. There will, most likely, be at least one Russian athlete who leaves South Korea with gold around their neck.

But it's probably not unfair to suggest their struggles in competition so far are being met with wide grins inside the IOC.

Honorable - and dishonorable - mentions: Adam Rippon (winner), Elise Christie (loser), South Korea (winner), Gary Bettman (loser), Pita Taufatofua (winner)

(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)