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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we just mentioned, the U.S. clinched the very first gold medal of Sochi's Winter Olympics this weekend, when Sage Kotsenburg won in the men's snowboard slopestyle event. Kotsenburg is from Utah and he's the third resident of that state to win a Gold. So which Americans are most likely to win Golds for Team USA? OK, it might unpatriotic to take a tally of which states win more Olympic medals, but it's in a healthy competitive spirit.
So it turns out that athletes from New York State are in the lead with the most wins - a total of 23 Gold Medals, according to a count by AOL.
Minnesota and Massachusetts are second and third place respectively. That makes sense, since both those states are known for snow. But what about Wyoming and Maine? Lots of snow in both those states, no Gold Medals; nary a one.
Altogether, including the medals won at Sochi so far, the U.S. is in second place when it comes to Winter Olympic gold medals - not bad. But Norway - a nation of only five million people - has the top spot. Just to put that in perspective, Norway's population is about the same as the state of Alabama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.