As he approached his 35th birthday, Aksel Lund Svindal didn’t always feel like he would make Olympic history as the oldest Alpine gold medalist.

The Winter Olympics are supposed to be cold, of course. Just maybe not this cold.

Given his surname and upbringing — on a tiny island of fewer than 600 people in Norway — on first glance it seems unlikely that Thomas Westgaard would be competing for Ireland in the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Teenager Yulia Lipnitskaya stole the show as host nation Russia won their first gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, with their figure skating team triumphing in some style at the Iceberg Skating Palace.

Swiss Dario Cologna took the gold in the men’s 15km free cross country skiing competition at Whistler Olympic Park in a time of 33 minutes 36.3 seconds.