Pyeongchang 2018 Superstar Upclose: Chloe Kim Making Waves at a Young Age
Many histories were made in Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. One of those is under Chloe Kim's name. She scored a gold medal for Team USA in halfpipe snowboarding event in a very heart-stopping performance.
Who is Chloe Kim?
U.S.-born Chloe Kim is marking her name in the world of sports at very young age. Though she already won titles in several international competitions, she became a social media star and gained a cult of followers when she did a back-to-back 1080s in Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. She was given the highest scores in the male-dominated sport and became the first woman to perform such stunt.
For Kim, her victory is even more memorable because she did it in her parents' birth country. Kim's parents, Jong Jin and Boran Yun, migrated from South Korea to the United States in 1982. Kim was born in America.
"It means a lot just being able to do it where my family is from. A lot of pressure, but I'm happy I was able to do it here and do it for the fans and the family. It was a really fun moment for everyone," Kim said during a press conference after her victory.
Pyeongchang 2018 host country South Korea couldn't be more proud of the young achiever. The country considered her as its own although she competed for Team USA. It is not only because South Korea doesn't have halfpipe athletes but because of her ties to the country.
Chloe Kim's Humble Beginning
Like ordinary teens, Kim loves shopping, video games, and pizza. She is fluent in English, Korean and French. Aside from competing on the ice, Kim would also like to attend Harvard and become a sports agent.
The dream to be the best female snowboarder in the world began at the age of four when her father bought her a snowboard and made her first roll in the ice in California's resort Mammoth Mountain. Kim started competing at the age of six as a member of Team Mountain High.
Her father quit his engineering job to guide his then 8-year-old child to achieve her dream. Jong Jin called his daughter a rare dragon. For him, the young snowboarder's talent is something that any parent would be willing to sacrifice for.
Chloe Kim's Glowing Achievements
Pyeongyang 2018 is Kim's first Winter Games. She qualified for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia when she was 13. However, she was more than two years short of the Olympics' minimum age requirement at the time. At 14, she took her first of the gold medals at the X Games. In the 2016 X Games, she was named as the first person under the age of 16 to win two gold medals and back-to-back gold victories at an X Games.
At the 2016 U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix, she became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080 spins. She scored a perfect score of 100 and became the second halfpipe rider ever to do so. The first is Shaun White in X Games' Men's Snowboard Superpipe. Kim was only 15 at the time. Now at 17, she is an Olympic gold medalist and has several endorsements under her name including from Toyota, Nike, and Samsung.