Gangwon 2024 countdown: Top seven performances at the Winter Youth Olympic Games

Each edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games has produced astonishing individual performances that will live long in the memory.

From River Radamus to Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu, many of the outstanding athletes have even gone on to become world and Olympic Champions.

The next edition of the Winter YOG, Gangwon 2024, will be the first to be held in Asia, and there will undoubtedly be more of these magic moments in the Republic of Korea.

Below, we take a look at a selection of the most impressive performances in Winter Youth Olympic Games history.

1 - Ailing (Eileen) Gu's freestyle skiing heroics, Lausanne 2020

People’s Republic of China athlete Ailing (Eileen) Gu was the star of the Lausanne 2020 YOG.

Aged 16, the American-born freestyle skier won gold in both halfpipe and big air, plus silver in slopestyle.

“It was my first time competing in three events and really having to juggle training and competition back-to-back,” she told Olympics.com.

“And so, dealing with that pressure consistently for a week straight, I think it taught me a lot. Learning to handle pressure is probably one of the biggest things an athlete has to do. And I think the Youth Olympic Games definitely prepared me for that.”

The achievement laid the perfect foundation for Gu’s maiden Winter Olympics at Beijing 2022, where she became the youngest freeski Olympic champion ever with big air and halfpipe golds, in addition to slopestyle silver.

2 - River Radamus's three golds, Lillehammer 2016

Alpine skier River Radamus lit up the 2016 Winter YOG in Lillehammer, claiming three gold medals.

The American’s first medal came the day after his 18th birthday in the super-G, by 0.03 of a second. Using that momentum, he won the super combined (super-G and slalom) by 0.89s, despite losing his pole halfway down.

The Vail native then rounded things off with victory in the giant slalom.

“Right now if someone wrote a biography about me it would start and finish with ‘three-time Youth Olympic gold medallist’,” Radamus, who was coached by his parents, told Olympics.com.

“It is something that is special to me and I will never forget it but I don’t want at the end of my career to have that be the defining moment of my career.”

True to his word, Radamus won two more gold medals at the 2019 Junior World Championships, before becoming a world champion in 2023 in the team event for the United States.

And in January 2024, he finished fourth in the Adelboden giant slalom for his best World Cup result yet.

3 - Chloe Kim's record-breaking halfpipe, Lillehammer 2016

Chloe Kim gained global attention when she won snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle gold medals in spectacular fashion at Lillehammer 2016.

The USA flagbearer notched the highest score in YOG snowboarding halfpipe history.

Kim went on to win halfpipe gold, aged 17, at the Winter Olympics PyeongChang 2018, before retaining that title at Beijing 2022.

“The experience of the Youth Olympic Games is very useful, as it gives you a better idea of what the Winter Games will be like,” she told Olympics.com.

“It just gives you a better idea of what the Games are going to be like and, if anything, it made [going to PyeongChang] way more mellow.”

4 - Aline Danioth's four medals, Lillehammer 2016

Aline Danioth won a medal in every individual women’s alpine skiing event in Lillehammer.

The Swiss’s dream YOG began with an unexpected bronze in the super-G, despite the fact that she hadn’t trained for it too much.

The next day, she took home combined gold, before winning the giant slalom and securing another bronze in the super-G.

“It was such a great occasion and I was very lucky to experience it all as a young athlete. It was huge, like the Olympic Games themselves. We were stars for a whole week, and being at the Olympic Village with athletes from other sports was special too. It was an incredible atmosphere,” Danioth told Olympics.com

Injuries have seriously restricted her opportunities at senior level although she did become a world champion in 2019 as she helped Switzerland take the team event title in Åre, Sweden. Danioth also finished sixth in the 2023 World Championship slalom at Courchevel-Meribel having been 10th in the Beijing 2022 Olympic slalom.

5 - Three golds for Marco Schwarz, Innsbruck 2012

At the Innsbruck 2012 YOG, 16-year-old Austrian Marco Schwarz put on an alpine skiing masterclass to claim three gold medals.

Schwarz's first success came in the combined event where he finished 0.67 seconds ahead of Slovenia's Miha Hrobat. Next up, he helped his nation land the parallel mixed team event, before winning the giant slalom by four-tenths of a second.

Schwarz’ career has flourished since then, winning team silver at PyeongChang 2018 before landing the combined world title and slalom World Cup crystal globe in 2021.

“I learnt a lot from those Youth Olympic Games,” he told Olympics.com. “It’s difficult to concentrate when you take part in such an important event. I was 16 and it was the first time I had so much media attention. That helped me a lot for my future career.

"I learnt to focus on the most important things and not to have too many expectations. After Innsbruck 2012, my career really took off and I made my World Cup debut a year later."

Now 28, Schwarz has also shown he can mix it with the best in speed disciplines although his 2023/24 season was ended prematurely by a knee injury sustained when crashing out of the Bormio downhill.

6 - Finland men’s score ice hockey upset, Innsbruck 2012

Finland is not traditionally viewed in the same bracket as the traditional powerhouses of the USA, Canada, and Russia when it comes to ice hockey.

But that underdog status suited the Finns just fine at the first Winter YOG at Innsbruck 2012.

The team won two and lost two in the preliminary round, before causing a major upset to beat Canada 2-1 in the semi-finals.

In the gold medal match, Russia scored in the first period, before Waltteri Hopponen levelled in the third to force overtime.

In the subsequent penalty shoot-out, Manu Honkanen and Kasperi Kapanen found the net with goalie Kaapo Kahkonen keeping out both Russian shots out to secure a memorable triumph.

7 - You Young's eight triples, Lausanne 2020

You Young was just 15 at Lausanne 2020, but that didn't stop her dominating the women's figure skating competition.

In truth, the Republic of Korea skater's brilliance was no surprise given that she went into the competition as a four-time national champion.

You won in Lausanne by over 12 points from Russia's Kseniia Sinitsyna, landing a triple Axel in a total of eight clean triple jumps in her free skate.

Weeks later, she took silver at the prestigious Four Continents Championships to become her nation’s first medallist since Olympic champion Yuna Kim won the event in 2009.

After the pandemic, she earned podium finishes at Skate America and the NHK Trophy in as she just missed out on the 2021/22 Grand Prix Final before claiming her fifth national title. She also finished sixth at Beijing 2022, the best Olympic finish by a Korean woman other than Kim, and fifth at that year's World Championships.

You has struggled to recapture her best form since and is now working under Shin Hea-sook having split with previous coach Hamada Mie.