Winter Olympics: As New Zealand and Australia celebrate, Beijing medals table tells a familiar story

New Zealand celebrated their first ever Winter Olympics gold on Sunday, and Australia broke new ground by winning multiple medals on the same day.

On the medals table, however, Norway and Sweden occupied places one and two, the Scandinavian snow and ice sport specialists going through familiar motions.

Members of the New Zealand team performed a haka as 20-year-old Zoi Sadowski-Synnott was awarded gold for a virtuoso snowboard slopestyle triumph, a moment of sporting history for her country.

Sadowski-Synnott will go again later in the Beijing Games when she competes in the big air event, a famous double in her sights. New Zealand squeezed into the top 10 on the medals table thanks to their first medals success of any colour in China, tying for ninth place with the hosts so far.

Australia share sixth with Japan and Slovenia, each nation having a gold and a bronze so far. Japan savoured their first ski jumping Olympic title since 1998 as Ryoyu Kobayashi soared to gold in the men's normal hill competition on Sunday.

The Australians clasped their hands on two medals in a day for the first time in Winter Games history, with Tess Coady taking bronze behind Sadowski-Synnott while Jakara Anthony swooped for a mesmerising gold in the freestyle skiing women's moguls.

Still, the top five on the medals table had a familiar look to it, with Germany and Netherlands tied in fourth with one gold and one silver each. Johannes Ludwig delivered Germany's first gold in Beijing when the 35-year-old triumphed in the luge men's singles. Patrick Roest took silver for Netherlands in the 5,000 metres speed skating, his country's only medal on Sunday.

Russian Olympic Committee have captured the most medals so far, but only one of their five has been gold, so they sit third on the table. Alexander Bolshunov led an ROC 1-2 in the cross-country skiathlon on Sunday, as Denis Spitsov took silver.

Sweden are dealing only in gold at the moment, with Nils van der Poel's 5,000m speed skating glory run on Sunday following a podium top spot on Saturday for Walter Wallberg in the men's moguls.

That means Norway, the most successful nation in Winter Olympics history, head the table in its nascent stage. After landing gold twice on Saturday, their encore was understated, with bronze in the speed skating for Hallgeir Engebraaten their only top-three placing.