Team USA's Best Bets for Gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics

The gold medal is the ultimate prize at the Olympics, and Team USA could leave Pyeongchang with a double-digit tally.

Mikaela Shiffrin and Heather Bergsma are well-known favorites in their respective sports, but a couple of rising stars and a few previous Olympic medal winners will each head to South Korea with gold on their mind.

Nathan Chen and Chloe Kim represent the next generation of potential champions, looking to join past gold medalists returning to the Games, such as Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn and Maddie Bowman.

In all likelihood, Team USA won't return with 15 gold medals. But if "The Star-Spangled Banner" starts playing, the odds are favorable one of these athletes—or teams—will be standing on the podium.

No American woman has ever medaled in cross-country skiing. Jessie Diggins is a threat to wipe out that history.

The 26-year-old is looking to improve upon an eighth-place finish in the 15-kilometer race and a quarterfinals qualification in the sprint at the 2014 Sochi Games.

She took a step forward in that pursuit with a silver during the sprint at the 2017 World Championships. Diggins and fellow Olympian Sadie Bjornsen combined for a bronze in the team sprint.

Diggins, who is third in the World Cup rankings, will likely race in the 10K, 15K, team sprint and 4x5K relay.

While two of McRae Williams' slopestyle ski teammates medaled at the 2014 Sochi Games, the 27-year-old has more recent success.

At the 2017 World Championships, Williams brought home the gold medal—while teammate Gus Kenworthy secured silver. Kenworthy is headed to Pyeongchang, along with Nick Goepper and Alex Hall.

Williams, who earned a silver at the 2017 Winter X Games, is the reigning World Cup champion in the discipline. He finished no worse than sixth in the previous three seasons, too.

At just 16 years old, aerials skier Ashley Caldwell made her Olympic debut with a 10th-place finish in Vancouver. Four years later, she crushed the field in the opening round of qualifying but ultimately did not advance through to the finals.

Consistency is demanded at the Olympics, but Caldwell—the 2016 World Cup winner—has a not-so-secret weapon to unleash.

Known for her triple flips, Caldwell was the first woman to land a quadruple-twisting variant called "The Daddy." That trick won her gold at the 2017 World Championships.

In five World Cup events this season, Lindsey Jacobellis has won twice and finished on the podium in another race.

She must be eager for another shot at redemption. Jacobellis had a gold medal in her sights during the 2006 Turin Games. However, she attempted a method grab as a way to celebrate her impending triumph—and fell, recovering to win silver.

During both the Vancouver and Sochi Games, she failed to reach the medal round despite having the second-fastest qualifying time and winning a quarterfinal race at both venues.

Jacobellis has won gold in snowboard cross at five World Championships, including the last two.

The Dufour-Lapointe sisters, Justine and Chloe, secured gold and silver for Canada in 2014. But there's a rising star (or two) from the United States threatening to bring back the hardware.

Jaelin Kauf, a 21-year-old moguls skier, currently leads the World Cup standings for the 2017-18 season. In seven appearances, she's won twice and finished second in two other events.

Kauf and teammate Morgan Schild—a 20-year-old who has a pair of podium finishes on tour—will attempt to edge the Dufour-Lapointes, Australia's Britteny Cox and France's Perrine Laffont.

When the Olympics added slopestyle, Jamie Anderson took her X Games dominance to the international stage. After winning eight medals in the domestic showcase, she won gold in the event's debut at the Sochi Games.

Since then, she's added three silvers and a gold at the X Games. And that's simply one showcase for Anderson.

In each of the last two years, she won the slopestyle World Cup. Anderson is third in 2017-18 but finished first in her lone appearance of the season.

Anderson will also compete in the inaugural big air event, though USA teammates Hailey Langland and Julia Marino are considered stronger contenders in that discipline.

"You will crash," Shaun White told B/R's Brandon Sneed. "It's what you do after those crashes that dictates what kind of rider you are and who you’re gonna be in the end."

How about a perfect 100 to qualify for the Olympics—just three months after a violent spill in New Zealand resulted in 62 stitches?

The much-needed score happened during White's final run at Snowmass. That secured his spot in Pyeongchang, where the halfpipe legend will attempt to earn his third Olympic gold. He won the event in the 2006 Turin and 2010 Vancouver Games.

Maddie Bowman, the gold-medal winner in halfpipe skiing at the 2014 Sochi Games, is back for another round.

In addition to that success in Russia, Bowman has stood on the podium in seven consecutive Winter X Games. She won gold from 2013-2016 and 2018, adding silver and bronze in 2012 and 2017, respectively.

Since the 24-year-old won the inaugural halftime competition, she could become the first woman ever to win the first two golds in an Olympic skiing event.

Early in his career, Joey Mantia was a world-champion inline skater. He might be the next gold medalist for the U.S. on the ice.

At the 2017 World Championships, the 31-year-old finished atop the podium in mass start. Mantia and Brian Hansen will represent the U.S. at the Olympics in the event, and the teammates are expected to work together in order for Mantia to make a late charge at gold.

But he also qualified for two other races.

Mantia will skate the 1,000 and 1,500 meters, two distances that he posted top-10 times at the World Championships. Decorated teammate Shani Davis wll join Mantia in both events.

She looks ready.

Despite battling a couple of injuries in 2017, Lindsey Vonn—who missed the 2014 Sochi Games due to a knee issue—has already recorded four World Cup victories since December.

Vonn's recent history of injuries is a slight cause for concern, but she's a gold-medal contender when at her best. And right now, Vonn is skiing like a gold-medal favorite.

She is expected to race the downhill, super-G and combined and might add giant slalom to her docket in Pyeongchang. During the 2010 Vancouver Games, Vonn won gold in downhill and bronze in super-G. 

Barring an unexpected result, the United States will need to defeat Canada in order to snap a 20-year streak without a gold medal.

Though the nations will play Feb. 15 to close the preliminary round, they're both expected to reach the gold-medal game. It would be the third straight Olympics where that happens, and Canada won the final showdown in both 2010 and 2014.

However, the U.S. toppled Canada twice in each of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 IIHF World Championships.

Team USA—which won the gold in 1998, the first year of women's hockey at the Olympics—has finished with silver, bronze, silver and silver in the last four Games.

This family is coming for gold medals. Only one of them is from the United States, though, and that's Heather Bergsma.

During the 2017 World Championships, she achieved gold in the 1,000- and 1,500-meter events and finished eighth in the 500-meter race. Bergsma qualified for each of those events at the 2018 Games and will represent the USA in the inaugural mass start race.

Bergsma is the current world-record holder in the 1,500 meters.

Her husband is Jorrit Bergsma, a Dutch speedskater who set an Olympic record in the 10,000-meter race at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Chloe Kim could have appeared in the 2014 Sochi Games had she been older. Instead, the 17-year-old will highlight the 2018 team.

Two years ago, she became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s. Kim will undoubtedly attempt to land that trick during the halfpipe competition in Pyeongchang.

She has finished first in two World Cup events this season and added a second-place run at Snowmass.

Kim earned a pair of gold medals in the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics and has claimed four golds in Winter X Games competitions.

Nathan Chen will arrive in Pyeongchang as the United States' preeminent hope for a gold in figure skating.

The 18-year-old star is already the first man in skating history to land five quadruple jumps in a single program. He again executed the feat at the recent 2018 U.S. Championships, earning his second consecutive gold medal at nationals.

Chen is also the reigning champion of the Four Continents Championships and Grand Prix Final.

"This is exactly what I wanted my entire life," Chen said after his U.S. title, per Rachel Lutz of NBC. "And I'm ready for it."

"Dominant" hardly begins to describe Shiffrin right now.

In this World Cup season, she's already absolutely crushing the field in the overall standings. Shiffrin has 1,513 points—a healthy 671 points ahead of the No. 2 spot—stands atop the slalom, is third in giant slalom disciplines and fifth in downhill.

Shiffrin took home gold in slalom at the 2014 Sochi Games and achieved the same at each of the last three World Championships. While that's her specialty, she's also a major contender in giant slalom but needs to outrace Germany's Viktoria Rebensburg.

The 22-year-old could be America's most decorated Olympian in 2018.