If you haven’t been following the Olympics or Chloe Kim, now’s the time to catch up on one of the greatest athletes of all time.
The snowboarder is now a two-time gold medalist at the Winter Olympic Games, competing in PyeongChang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022. In PyeongChang, she won her first gold medal and became the youngest woman to win a gold medal in snowboarding. On February 9, 2022, she won her second gold medal in the halfpipe event, defending her title.
Here’s everything you should know about the record-breaking snowboarder.
She started competing at age six. Chloe Kim began snowboarding when she was just four years old, per People. Snowboarding came naturally to Kim, and her father Jong Jin started taking her on six-hour drives from their Torrance, California home to Mammoth Mountain ski to practice the sport. As Kim got older, her father quit his job so he could fully commit to helping her achieve her snowboarding goals.
She qualified for the 2014 Sochi Olympic games. Kim qualified to compete in the Winter Games in Sochi—but at just 13 years old, was too young to go. It’s true that there is no official age limit for the Olympic games, but these parameters are decided by each International Sports Federation and the rules of each sport. In snowboarding, athletes have to be at least 15 years old.
She won her first gold medal at 17. In the women’s halfpipe event at the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, a 17-year-old Kim made history when she became the youngest woman to win a gold medal in snowboarding. Kim also became the youngest woman to land two 1080-degree spins in a row at the Olympics. This record secured her a spot on Time’s 100 most influential people list later that year. In honor of International Women’s Day in 2018, Barbie made several dolls in the likeness of inspiring women including Chloe Kim.
She competed on The Masked Singer. In 2020, Chloe Kim competed on the singing competition show The Masked Singer as a Jellyfish and made it to the semi-finals. She was unmasked in a triple elimination.
At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she won gold again. Now 21 years old, Kim successfully defended her gold medal in the halfpipe event. As if she hasn’t already broken enough records, Kim’s win made her the first snowboarder to win back-to-back gold medals in the halfpipe event.
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At just 21, there is definitely way more to come for Chloe Kim, pictured above on her IG with fellow snowboarding legend Shaun White at the Beijing Games.
5 Things to Know About Chloe Kim, the Record-Breaking Olympic Snowboarder
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