Chloe Kim

Chloe Kim (born April 23, 2000, Long Beach, California, U.S.) is an American snowboarder who won a gold medal in the half-pipe event at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. At 17 years and 10 months old, she was the youngest woman in Olympic history at the time to earn a gold medal in the event. She won a second consecutive gold medal in the half-pipe four years later at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, becoming the first woman to achieve that feat. Kim won a silver medal in half-pipe at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy.

(Read Olympic gold medalist Torah Bright’s Britannica entry on snowboarding.)

Childhood and early career

Kim’s parents were Korean immigrants to the United States. Encouraged by her father, Kim began snowboarding at age four at a ski resort in California’s San Gabriel Mountains. She started snowboarding competitively soon thereafter. Between ages 8 and 10, she lived with an aunt in Switzerland, where she trained regularly in the Alps. After returning to California, Kim joined a developmental team and continued to progress in her sport. In 2014 she made her debut at the X Games, one of the main venues for international snowboarding competition. Although she was only 13 years old at the time, she won a silver medal in the superpipe competition. Kim was the youngest competitor to earn a medal at the X Games.

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Rise to the top of snowboarding

A rule that Olympic participants in snowboarding must be at least 15 years old prevented Kim from competing at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. Over the next several years, however, she established herself as a major force in the sport. In 2015 she won the superpipe title at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado. The following year she captured gold in the superpipe at both the X Games in Aspen and the X Games in Oslo. She also won gold medals in the half-pipe and slopestyle at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Kim finished atop the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS; now the Fédération Internationale de Ski et de Snowboard [International Ski and Snowboard Federation]) World Cup half-pipe rankings for the 2017 season.

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Kim again won the X Games superpipe title in Aspen in January 2018. A month later, she entered the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as the strong favorite to win the half-pipe gold medal. Kim easily advanced to the half-pipe finals, during which she immediately took a commanding lead with a score of 93.75 on the first of her three runs in the competition. She fell during her second run. However, her nearest opponent—Liu Jiayu of China—could not overtake her and eventually claimed the silver medal with a score of 89.75. Having already clinched the gold, Kim pushed her own score to 98.25 with a spectacular final run that included two consecutive 1,080° jumps (three full turns in the air). She was the first woman to land back-to-back 1,080° jumps in Olympic competition.

Further Olympic success

Kim successfully defended her X Games superpipe title in Aspen in 2019. She subsequently took a break from competition and entered Princeton University. Kim later took a leave of absence from Princeton and returned full-time to snowboarding. Competing again in Aspen in 2021, she claimed her sixth X Games superpipe gold medal. At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Kim continued her dominance. Her first run in the half-pipe finals included two cleanly executed 1,080° jumps and gave her what turned out to be an insurmountable score of 94. With a comfortable lead, she used her second and third runs to attempt a 1,260° jump (three-and-a-half revolutions)—something no female snowboarder had ever landed in a half-pipe contest. Although she fell on those attempts, her first-run score was more than enough to earn her the gold. Kim finished well ahead of silver medalist Queralt Castellet of Spain (90.25 points) and bronze medalist Sena Tomita of Japan (88.25).

Break and return to competition

After the Beijing Games Kim took time away from professional snowboarding, citing a need to focus on her mental health amid feelings of burnout. Upon her return in 2024, she quickly reestablished herself as a leading athlete in the sport. She won back-to-back gold medals in superpipe at the X Games in 2024 and 2025. Also in 2025 she earned first-place finishes in half-pipe at the world championships and in several World Cup competitions. Those victories secured her a spot on the U.S. team at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

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Kim had a scare when she tore the labrum (stabilizing cartilage) in her left shoulder while training in early January, one month before the Winter Olympics. Undeterred, she had a strong start at Milano Cortina, easily topping the field in the qualifying round for the half-pipe event. In the final, however, Kim fell on two of her three runs and finished in second place to South Korean Choi Ga-on. At 17 years and 3 months old, Choi also became the youngest ever female gold medalist in the event, breaking the mark set by Kim in 2018.