PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA — Team North Korea has scored an early success in the 2018 Winter Olympics after winning the Gold Medal for crossing red lines, sources confirmed today.

Crossing red lines, in which competitors try to outdo each other in violating international norms and basic standards of human decency, has been a longtime Winter Olympics sport ever since it was first introduced by Germany in the 1936 Winter Olympics.

North Korea beat historical favorites Syria, Russia, and Iran, along with a surprisingly strong first-time showing by the United States. Odds-makers had favored Syria and defending champion Russia, although due to the Olympic ban, an unknown number of Russian athletes are believed to be competing on the Ukrainian team.

Just minutes into the event, Russia had taken an early lead by bribing all the judges with free steroids, while Syria and Iran had taken the judges’ families hostage.

The United States briefly surged with a borderline racist Twitter rant until North Korea stormed into the lead by blowing up the reviewing stands and killing all the judges, opening credit cards in all their names to buy weapons from several terrorist groups, and sending a bill for the explosives to the International Olympic Committee.

The North Korean team was later caught trying to purchase banned missile technology with counterfeit U.S. dollars through a front company supposedly created to feed starving African children, cinching the Gold Medal.

“Once again North Korea has managed to cross all possible red lines through the strength and wisdom of its Eternal Leader, Kim Jong-un,” said IOC President Thomas Bach in a social media post revealed to have been the work of North Korean hackers and containing several types of malware.

“Crossing red lines has become something of an art form in North Korea,” said Red Line expert Adam Sullivan.

Although the sport has historically been dominated by Russia and the former Soviet Bloc, since 1980 several Middle Eastern countries have become perennial strong contenders.

However, over the past three decades North Korea has invested time and money in building world-class red line crossing capabilities. Its team surprised the world in 1987, for example, when they blew up Korean Air Flight 858 to scare countries away from the Seoul Olympics.

North Korea has already announced plans to treat its winning team to a victory parade in Pyongyang, after which they and their families will be sent to concentration camps to have their internal organs harvested for later sale on the black market.