Chloe Kim (born April 23, 2000) is an American snowboarder. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, she became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal when she won gold in the women's snowboard halfpipe at the age of 17 years. She is a four-time X Games gold medalist and the first woman to win two gold medals in snowboarding at the Winter Youth Olympic Games.
Video Chloe Kim
Early life
Kim was born in Long Beach, California and raised in nearby Torrance. Her parents are originally from South Korea. Kim's father quit his job to drive her to the mountains and also to be able to travel with her when she competes. He started her on a snowboard at 4 years old at the southern California resort of Mountain High and she started competing at 6 as a member of Team Mountain High. She then trained in Valais, Switzerland, from 8 to 10 years old before returning to California and training at Mammoth Mountain. Kim joined up with U.S. Snowboarding in 2013.
Maps Chloe Kim
Career
X Games
While being too young to compete in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Kim earned silver in superpipe in the 2014 Winter X Games, coming behind Kelly Clark. In 2015, Chloe won Gold in the super pipe event in the Winter X Games beating Kelly Clark. With this win, at age 14, Kim became the youngest gold medalist until she lost this record to Kelly Sildaru, who won gold in 2016 at the age of 13. In the 2016 X Games, she became the first person under the age of 16 to win two gold medals (and thus the first such person to win back-to-back gold medals) at an X Games. At that year's U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix, she became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080 spins in a snowboarding competition. She scored a perfect 100 points, and is believed to be the second rider ever to do so, after Shaun White.
2016 Winter Youth Olympics
In 2016, she became the first American woman to win a gold medal in snowboarding at the Winter Youth Olympic Games, and earned the highest snowboarding score in Youth Olympic Games history at the time. She was selected as Team USA's flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games, thus becoming the first snowboarder chosen to serve as flag bearer for Team USA at either the Olympic Winter Games or Youth Olympic Games. Kim was nominated for the 2016 ESPYS award for Best Breakthrough Athlete.
2018 Winter Olympics
Her first time competing in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Kim took Gold in the Women's Halfpipe finals with Ricky Bower as her coach. Her first was 93.75 points. 8.5 points ahead of second place. Her last score in the Halfpipe was close to a perfect score at, 98.25 points. She was nearly 10 points ahead of the woman who placed 2nd, Liu Jiayu. She was also the youngest woman to ever land two 1080-degree spins in a row at the Olympics. At age 17 she became the youngest woman to ever win gold at the Olympics in the Halfpipe beating the past record holder, Kelly Clark, who was 18.
Personal life
Kim is a Korean American, being a second-generation American; her parents are immigrants from South Korea. Kim still has extended family living in South Korea, where she competed in the 2018 Winter Olympics. Her relatives, including her grandmother, got to watch her compete for the first time at the Olympics. She is trilingual, being fluent in Korean, French, and English. Kim was on the cover of Sports Illustrated following her Olympic gold medal. She was also asked to be on the cover of a Kellogg's Corn Flakes box and Barbie is making a doll of her for their new line of inspiring women which also features Amelia Earhart. Following her win she became more popular on her social media accounts and as a person. In addition, Kim was accepted to Princeton University's Class of 2022. She won 3 ESPYs in 2018 for Best Female Athlete, Best Female Olympian, and Best Female Action Sports Athlete.
See also
- List of Olympic medalists in snowboarding
- List of Youth Olympic Games gold medalists who won Olympic gold medals
References
External links
- Chloe Kim on Facebook
- Chloe Kim at United States Ski and Snowboard Association
Source of article : Wikipedia
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