Switzerland's Dario Cologna crushed the field in the men's 15km freestyle race to take his third successive Olympic cross country title over the distance, winning gold in a time of 33:43.9 minutes at the Alpensia Sports Park on Friday.
Norway's Simen Hegstad Krueger finished 18.3 seconds behind the Swiss, with Denis Spitsov, representing Olympic Athletes from Russia, in third another 4.7 seconds further back.
Known in his home country as "Super Dario", the 31-year-old Cologna burst into tears and was comforted by his coaches as it became clear his victory was secured.
"It's very big to win a gold medal at the Olympics. It's always a lot of hard work and then I saw my family who were here as well, so there were a lot of emotions," he said.
"Maybe it's the toughest event and you have to know your body very well and find the right speed. In the World Cup I didn't win the 15km so many times, but in the Olympics everything is perfect."
Ireland's Thomas Westgard was 63rd in a time of 37 minutes, 36.6 seconds. Elsewhere, Tess Arbez and Pat McMillan both recorded top-50 finishes in their respective events in Pyeongchang today.
Two Swiss freestyle skiers have contracted the norovirus, the Swiss team said today, becoming the first confirmed cases among athletes at the Pyeongchang Winter Games.
A Swiss team spokesperson said one of athletes was Fabian Boesch but not want to name the other as the athlete's relatives had not yet been informed.
Boesch had become an internet sensation at the Games after posting a video of himself hanging onto the outside rail of an escalator as it climbed upward.
The Games have been hit by an outbreak of the virus that causes vomiting and diarrhoea but until Friday the athletic delegations had been unaffected.
More than 200 people have been confirmed to have contracted the norovirus, most of them security staff and Games personnel.
South Korea's "Iron Man", Yun Sung-bin rocketed to the men's skeleton gold on Friday and become the first athlete outside Europe or North America to win an Olympic sliding medal after dominating the event at the Pyeongchang Games.
"I just want to turn my phone off and go to sleep," Yun told reporters after his historic win.
Yun, who won the hosts' second gold of the Games, finished 1.63 seconds ahead of Nikita Tregubov, an Olympic Athlete from Russia, while Briton Dom Parsons took bronze after five-time world champion and Olympic silver medallist Martins Dukurs of Latvia made mistakes in his final run.Italys Michela Moioli clinched Olympic gold at the end of a dramatic snowboard cross final at Pyeongchangs Phoenix Snow Park on Friday.
Frances 16-year-old Julia Pereira de Sousa Mabileau took home the silver, while Sochi gold medallist Eva Samkova of the Czech Republic claimed the bronze.
Dutchwoman Esmee Visser powered to gold in the women's 5,000 metres speed skating as normal service resumed for the Netherlands at the Gangneung Oval on Friday.
Defending champion Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic claimed silver in the longest Olympic speed skating distance for women and Natalia Voronina took the bronze medal for the Olympic Athletes from Russia team.
The Dutch have now won six of the seven gold medals on offer in the speed skating events after missing out on gold in the men's 10,000m on Wednesday.
Visser became the second-youngest athlete to win the event at the age of 22, behind only German veteran Claudia Pechstein, who finished eighth in the 12-strong field six days shy of her 46th birthday.
Thirty years after his father won a silver medal in the Olympic super-G, Matthias Mayer went one better on Friday with a surprise win in the same event - days after hurting his hip and two years after suffering a broken back.
As in Sochi four years ago, where he upset pre-race favourites to win the men's downhill, the Austrian entered the race as an outsider against a crack field including in-form Norwegians Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud.
His victory by 0.13 seconds over Beat Feuz of Switzerland means the Mayer family now has a better record than most countries in men's Olympic super-G - an event that's only ever been won by Norway, Austria, France or Germany.
Mayer joked he could put his medal together with the silver his father Helmut won in Calgary in 1988.
"I saw his Olympic silver medal my whole lifetime, it was in our living room," he told reporters. "I'm happy to have my own now... Yes, maybe he can have mine too."
Ryan Donato scored twice on the powerplay to lift the U.S. men's ice hockey team to a 2-1 victory over Slovakia on Friday in what is shaping up as a wide-open Olympic tournament being played without NHL players for the first time in 24 years.
After blowing a two-goal lead in the third period to lose to Slovenia in overtime on Wednesday, Friday's performance showed U.S. coach Tony Granato his team had learned from that letdown.
"When you go through experiences, if you learn from them and you apply them the next time that happens in life or in a game, then it was worth the experience," Granato said.
"The experience we gained from losing that lead in game one was we had to play differently tonight. It wasn't a perfect game, but I thought it was solid."
Both teams are 1-1 in the tournament. The U.S. next play the Russians and Slovakia meet Slovenia, both on Saturday.
The men's Olympic tournament is being played without NHL players for the first time since 1994 after the league and International Olympic Committee failed to agree on covering players' travel and insurance costs.
Sweden's Frida Hansdotter won gold in the women's slalom as defending champion and clear favourite Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States failed to even reach the podium.
Shiffrin has utterly dominated women's slalom, winning four of the last five World Cup season titles and the last three World Championships, as well as the gold in Sochi four years ago.
But her performance was well below her usual standards and she said she had been unwell prior to her first run.
