The curtain has closed on 16 days of fascinating competitions at the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games,  “the Games of the New Horizons” as the IOC President defined them.

For Europe, the 2019 Winter Olympics marked a record with all the 50 European NOCs present, thanks to Kosovo participating for the first time, thus making the European Olympic Committees the only continental association proud to have all its NOC Members competing in any edition of the Olympic Winter Games.

Amongst the 91 NOCs participating at PyeongChang, 21 out of 27 N0Cs featuring in the medal standings are European, with an extraordinary Norway in first place (39 medals) and Europe as a whole bringing home a total of 210 medals.

Apart from the outstanding success at PyeongChang 2018, Europe has one reason more to congratulate Norway: the legend Marit Bjørgen (37) becoming the most decorated female winter Olympian in history. She reached a total of 14 medals (7 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze), overtaking the Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjorndalen, who totalled 13 Olympic medals (8 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze).

Amongst PyeongChang highlights, how not to mention the world record score by Germany’s Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot in the pairs figure skating. Snapping off a flawless series of jumps and flowing choreography, the two broke their own world record in the free skate with 159.31 points for a total of 235.90 winning the Olympic gold medal.

Regarding the outcomes of the IOC meetings in PyeongChang, there is some relevant news to recall: the election of Czech NOC President Jiří Kejval as IOC member; the renewal of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, with the the appointment of the Zimbabwean Olympic swimmer Kirsty Coventry as  Chair and Slovak skeet shooter  Danka Bartekova as Vice Chair, as well as the election of two new members Finnish Emma Terho (Ice Hockey) and American Kikkan Randall (Cross-country skiing).

However, the greatest success of 2018 Olympic Games was the Call for Peace.

IOC President Thomas Bach, just before declaring the Games closed, referred to the two Koreas’ cooperation, saying, “The Olympic Games are an homage to the past and an act of faith for the future.”

He recalled the Korean joint march thanking them for sharing with the world their faith in a peaceful future and stressing how sport can bring people together and build bridges in this very fragile time.

Also Korean President Moon Jae-in chose to highlight the endeavor to broaden the horizon of peace that began in PyeongChang. “This celebration of peace has just began in PyeongChang and will continue on to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games and the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games,” he said in closing remarks distributed by the Organizing Committee ahead of the closing ceremony.

The Olympic flag is now entrusted to Beijing that will organize the  2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Well done PeyongChang! Good luck to Beijing!