Olympic Wednesday has reached the moment of our first Winter Olympiad attendance in person: the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, UT! True, we only had tickets to the curling sessions, but those were still awesome. Overall, almost 2,400 competitors from 77 countries converged in the high desert on the Western United States to partake in 78 medal events across 15 different disciplines. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was nuts!

On the medal table, Germany (36) came out on top, just managing to overcome the host nation’s 34 medals; Norway came in third with 25 podium finishes. Yet nine countries overall managed to win at least 11 pieces of hardware, which represented a nice distribution curve. All in all, 26 nations took home some mementoes, meaning over a third of the participating countries won a prize. That’s pretty inclusive, all told.

Most Outstanding Male Athlete: Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Norway

Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen was the best of the best in SLC, winning four golds—three of them individual. And yet we’re guessing no one reading this has ever heard of him. In his full Olympic career, he actually won 13 overall medals. Wow! But we digress: here he won the 10km sprint, the 12.5km pursuit, and the 20km event—in addition to bringing home gold in the 4×7.5km relay for Norway. Whoa!

But there’s more: Bjørndalen also competed in the 30km cross-country skiing event … and he finished fifth. So he was pretty close to winning a medal in a second discipline, which is actually pretty crazy if you think about it for more than a few moments. Sure, there’s a little crossover there, so it’s not like he was doing the bobsled and playing hockey; however, he came very close to achieving something absolutely incredible.

Most Outstanding Female Athlete: Janica Kostelić, Croatia

Croatian alpine skier Janica Kostelić dominated the competition, winning three gold medals and a silver on the various slopes of Utah. Again, would most Americans even know her name? Probably not, considering the ethnocentrically crappy U.S. TV coverage. She took home first place in the giant slalom, the slalom, and the combined events, while winning silver in the Super G event. That’s a great week for us all.

Most Outstanding Male Team: Finnish Nordic Combined

Finland swept all the gold medals in the Nordic Combined events at these Games, with victories in the team competition, the individual, and the sprint events. Samppa Lajunen won gold medals in all three competitions, while teammate Jaakko Tallus took home the silver in the individual event. Overall, Finland won four of a possible seven medals in the discipline to take the honors in this category for 2002.

Most Outstanding Female Team: German Speed Skating

Germany won seven medals out of a possible 10 in the speed skating events, led by two-time gold winner Claudia Pechstein (3,000m and 5,000m). Anni Friesinger (1,500m) joined her as an event winner, while Sabine Völker won three medals (silver in the 1,000m and 1,500m; bronze in the 500m)—albeit no golds. Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt won silver in the 500m to complete the German women’s impressive showing.

Editor’s Note: This is fourth consecutive Winter Olympiad where the German speedskaters have won this honor, dating back to 1992. This is a record in our historical analyses.