US winter Olympians smashed the 30-medal mark in the two most recent Games in the USA and Canada. But outside North America, they’ve never hit such heights. The 2014 total of 28, pending any further promotions to the podium as more drug-testing evidence comes in, is the US record on any other continent.

To push that total over 30 a year from now in South Korea, the USA will need great performance from a lot of athletes who are themselves over 30.

Yes, the USA has a couple of literal millennials – snowboarders Chloe Kim and Hailey Langland were born in 2000 and already have plenty of X Games and World Cup hardware. Despite a few missteps in January’s X Games, snowboarding and freestyle skiing have the talent pipelines to continue padding the US medal count as they have since they burst into the Olympic program at the turn of the century. Teen phenom Nathan Chen is the most electrifying figure skater on the US scene in years.

A few athletes in their 20s are dominating: Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin is the overall World Cup leader, the deep US ice dancing squad put three duos into the Grand Prix top six this year, and speed skater Heather Bergsma is unbeaten in five 1,000m World Cup races this season.

But the trend of older athletes pushing the medal count over 30 looks likely to continue. The USA had no medalists in that age range from 1960 to 1992, then a couple in 1994 and 1998 before the big breakthrough on home ice in 2002, when older skaters and sliders contributed to 10 medals of the USA’s then-record haul of 34. After a dip in 2006 in Europe, the over-30s once again came through in North America for 10 of the USA’s 37 medals in 2010.

The numbers usually drop off when the Olympics go to another continent. But the USA may bring more than 20 athletes who are over 30 and already have Olympic medals. Add a few more who are in good form, and the older generation could easily contribute to 10-12 medals – maybe even 15 – next year.

Bobsled driver Elana Meyers Taylor, who won bronze as a push athlete in 2010 and silver as a driver in 2014, credits the country’s training facilities.

“I’ve trained in Olympic Training Centers most of my career,” Meyers Taylor said. “I’ve lived full time in Lake Placid, Colorado Springs and Chula Vista. I’m able to get everything I need – nutrition, training, sports psychology. There’s a lot of resources in place that allow us to be able to continue our careers and stay healthy longer.”

Some of the older athletes are still at the top of their sports and will come into South Korea as medal favorites. If others can squeeze one more good downhill run or one more 1080 out of their battered and weathered bodies, this golden generation of winter athletes will move into record territory.

Among the Olympic medalists still competing at a high level who’ll be 30 or older in 2018 (age as of 9 February 2018 – the day of the opening ceremony):

Lindsey Vonn, Alpine skiing (33): The four-time overall World Cup champion is in the conversation with Serena Williams as the most dominant American ever in her sport. Ill-timed injuries have held her to just two Olympic medals – gold and bronze in 2010 – and she has had a few serious crashes in recent years. But she won the World Cup downhill last season and returned in January to win her 77th World Cup race, extending her women’s record. Her goal now is to beat Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86 wins, but she’d be happy to take another Olympic medal on the way.

Ted Ligety, Alpine skiing (33): The three-time world champion in giant slalom won’t be able to defend the title this year because of back surgery. He also won that event in the 2014 Olympics and won the combined in 2006.



Julia Mancuso, Alpine skiing (33): Her World Cup career has had its highlights, but she has saved her best for the big events – four Olympic medals, five world championship medals. The bad news: She is just now starting to return to action after nearly two years off due to hip surgery.



Andrew Weibrecht, Alpine skiing (32 on 10 February): The speedster had never finished better than 10th in World Cup racing when he took a stunning super-G bronze in 2010. He followed up super-G silver in 2014. Then he finally started getting World Cup results to match, racking up a few top-five finishes and two podiums.

Elana Meyers Taylor, bobsled (33): The former college softball player won bronze in 2010 as a push athlete, then came back as a driver to take silver in 2014, world championship gold in 2015 and the overall World Cup title the same year. This year, she shook off a disqualification in the World Cup opener to surge back into title contention with four straight wins, closing in on Canadian Kaillie Humphries and her fellow American ...

Jamie Greubel Poser, bobsled (34): Like Meyers Taylor, she’s a former college athlete (track and field) and push athlete who earned an Olympic medal (bronze) in 2014 and has enough World Cup wins to contend for a season title.

Steven Holcomb, bobsled (37): The most successful bobsledder in US history has been on the track for nearly two decades. He has three Olympic medals, including gold in the 2010 four-man, along with several world championship golds and World Cup overall titles, and he’s contending for the season title in two-man this year.

Joe Polo, curling (35): With Tabitha Peterson (28), he took bronze in the new event of mixed doubles at the 2016 world championships. He’s also in the mix to play in traditional four-man curling, where he already has a bronze medal from 2006 playing alongside Pete Fenson, Shawn Rojeski and John Shuster. This year, he has served as an alternate for Shuster and vice-skip for Rojeski.

Meghan Duggan, ice hockey (30): The captain of the silver medal-winning team in 2014 and four-goal scorer in 2010 is one of several two-time Olympians in a recent training camp who will turn 30 in the next 12 months, along with Kacey Bellamy, Kelli Stack and Gigi Marvin. Duggan, Bellamy and Stack also were on the 2016 team that won the world championship.

Erin Hamlin, luge (31): The first American to win an individual luge medal (bronze, 2014) and the first US woman to win a world championship (2009) tore up the track at the world championships last month, winning the non-Olympic sprint event and taking silver in the traditional women’s race. She also was part of the silver-medalist US quartet in the team event, which was added to the Olympic program in 2014 and could give doubles slider Matt Mortensen (32) a shot at a medal.

Matt Antoine, skeleton (32): The 2014 bronze medalist has a couple of World Cup medals this season.

Lindsey Jacobellis, snowboardcross (32): The Olympics are the only competition she hasn’t won many times over – four world championships, 10 X Games gold medals (though her event was omitted this year), 26 World Cup snowboardcross wins (plus one in halfpipe), etc. She was leading the final in 2006 but grabbed her board near the finish and tumbled, recovering to take silver. Since then, the Olympics have been cursed for her – a collision in the 2010 semi-finals, a fall in the 2014 semis. But she’s still among the world’s best, finishing on the podium in her first two World Cup races this season.

Alex Deibold, snowboardcross (31): The 2014 bronze medalist is sixth in this year’s World Cup and is actually the youngest of a quartet of Olympic and X Games champions on the US squad (the other three are listed below). As with many other snowboard events, making the US team will be tough – relative youngster Hagen Kearney is third in the World Cup standings.

Seth Wescott, snowboardcross (41): He doesn’t have the best record on the World Cup, and he was usually second or third in the X Games. But he won gold in 2006 and did it again in 2010. A knee injury kept him out of Sochi.

Kelly Clark, snowboard halfpipe (34): The 2002 gold medalist as a teenager has added bronze in 2010 and 2014 along with countless medals at the X Games and elsewhere. She just missed another medal with a fourth-place finish at the X Games last month, and she won a World Cup event on 5 February at Mammoth Mountain.

Hannah Teter, snowboard halfpipe (31): The dedicated humanitarian won X Games gold at age 16 in 2004 and followed up with Olympic gold in 2006. She took silver in 2010 and fourth in 2014. She’s missed the X Games podium in recent years but took third at last week’s World Cup event ahead of the USA’s phenoms.

Shaun White, snowboard halfpipe (31): Time may be catching up with the Flying Tomato, who won Olympic gold in 2006 and 2010 and has dominated the X Games for a decade. He’s also a skateboarder and a musician, and he’s been spending less time on the slopes, placing fourth in the 2015 X Games and 11th this year. But he did win the US Open in 2016, he’s fifth in the World Cup standings after winning on 5 February at Mammoth, and though he seems to have been around for generations, he still isn’t ancient.

Shani Davis, speed skating (35): Gold at 1,000 meters, silver at 1,500. Repeat. Davis took two medals in 2006 and again in 2010. Like the rest of the US long-track skaters, he had a disappointing time in Sochi, but he has been on the World Cup podium at each of his favorite distances this season.

A couple of decorated athletes who have not closed the door on a comeback:

Bode Miller, Alpine skiing (40): Two silver medals as a young prospect in 2002, four world championship wins in 2003 and 2005, disappointment and controversy in 2006, World Cup championships in 2005 and 2008, a full trio of medals of 2010, and a bronze medal out of nowhere in 2014. He has raced exactly once since 2014 – a brief appearance at the 2015 world championships in which he had a great start and spectacular crash. But he’s holding the door open for one more run.

Meryl Davis (31) and Charlie White (30), ice dancing: The first US ice dancers to win the world championship (2011) did it again in 2013 and followed up with Olympic gold in Sochi. They also took silver in 2010. Since 2014, they’ve skated together in exhibitions and repeatedly postponed a decision on returning to competition. Their gold-winning score of 195.52 has been bettered only by the Canadian duo of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

A few other athletes have had World Cup success but not yet medaled in the Games:

Steven Nyman, Alpine skiing (35): The downhill specialist has three wins and 11 medals in his World Cup career, including a string of four straight downhill podiums last season that started in South Korea. He’ll need to bounce back from a knee injury suffered last month in a crash in Germany.

Susan Dunklee, biathlon (31): The USA has never medaled in the skiing-and-shooting sport, but the former Dartmouth cross-country skier has been on or near the World Cup podium several times in the past few seasons. Lowell Bailey (36) and Tim Burke (36) also have been on the podium – Burke even did it in the 2013 world championships.

Kikkan Randall, cross-country skiing (35): The Alaskan won three straight World Cup sprint season titles and the 2013 team sprint world championship (with phenom Jessie Diggins) and entered the 2014 Games as the best US medal hopeful in the sport in decades but was shockingly eliminated in the early rounds in Sochi. After taking time off to start a family, she’s working her way back into contention.

Nate Holland, snowboardcross (39): The seven-time X Games champion placed fourth in the 2010 Games and is currently ninth in the World Cup standings. He also won on the 2018 Olympic course in 2016.

Nick Baumgartner, snowboardcross (36): The two-time X Games and two-time world championship medalist reached the World Cup podium a couple of times in 2016.

Joey Mantia, speed skating (32): The latest talent to switch from inline skating to ice made his Olympic debut in 2014 and has three World Cup wins over the past two seasons.