U.S. snow queen crowned
Charismatic teen Kim routs halfpipe field, produces nearly perfect final run
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Chloe Kim’s coronation is complete.
The teenager from Torrance, Calif., dominated the Olympic women’s halfpipe snowboarding final Tuesday, soaring to a gold medal four years in the making.
Kim, 17, put up a score of 93.75 on the first of her three finals runs and then bettered it with a nearly perfect 98.75 on her last run with the gold already well in hand. With members of her family in the stands, including her South Korean grandmother, Kim put on a show that delivered on her considerable pre-Olympic hype.
“I was like tearing up and wanted to cry, but I just knew I wasn’t going to be happy, even if I went home with the gold, if I knew I could do better,” Kim said. “So that third run was really just to prove to myself that I deserved it and did everything I could. I’m so happy.”
Liu Jiayu took silver with an 89.75 to become the first Chinese snowboarder to medal at the Olympics.
American Arielle Gold, who pondered retirement last summer, edged teammate and three-time Olympic medalist Kelly Clark for bronze.
Kim’s parents were born in South Korea and moved to the U.S., putting their daughter in an interesting position heading into her first Olympics.
While she understands the urge to build a narrative that turns her into a connective tissue of sorts between the host country and the one she calls home, it’s one she has politely sidestepped. She views herself as just a kid from Southern California who likes music, the mall, ice cream and, oh, by the way, putting down the kind of gravityescaping, physics-challenging runs that have made her a dominant force in her sport.
“I try not to feel pressure because that kind of throws you off,” Kim said. “But when it does kind of creep into the back of my mind, I try to see it in a positive way, like, these people that are expecting all of this out of me do that because they know I can do it and they believe in me.”
Kim would have made the Olympic team with ease four years ago only to have the calendar get in the way. She was 13 at the time, too young to make the trip to Sochi, Chloe Kim goes airbone during her gold-medal performance in the halfpipe. She was nearly perfect on her final run with a 98.75. Russia.
She entered the four years between the Games with the kind of expectations reserved for the Shaun Whites of the snowboarding world. She has exceeded every one.
Standing atop the hill at calm and brilliant Phoenix Snow Park — a stark contrast to the windy mess that turned the women’s slopestyle final into an ugly, borderline unsafe and crash-filled mess 24 hours earlier — Kim wasted little time turning the final into a global coming-out party.
She drilled her opening set, throwing in a 1080 — basically, three twists high above the pipe — before following it with a pair of flips (or “corks”).
When her score flashed, she clasped her hands atop her head and drank in the moment.
“I need to go home and process every- thing, and I’ll probably bawl my eyes out some more,” Kim said. “This has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl, so just to be here and to be able to do it when it mattered feels amazing.”
Kim’s teammates made serious bids to give the Americans only their fourth Olympic podium sweep.
Gold, who dislocated her right shoulder during training for the Sochi Olympics and didn’t compete and then barely made the 12-woman final, brushed off a fall during her first run and stomped an 85.75 on her third run. Clark, the 2002 Olympic champion still going strong at 34, couldn’t quite catch Gold with an 83.50.
Jiayu came the closest to providing Kim with a serious threat. She drilled an 89.75 during her first set to take the lead only to watch Kim top it during her first run moments later.
Jiayu then washed out on her last trip down the longest Olympic halfpipe since the sport made its debut in 1998, turning Kim’s last run into a victory lap.
Rather than playing it safe, she went for it. Her No. 1 bib soaring into the South Korean sky, she put on a display that left the rest of the field and the thousands packed near the finish roaring their approval.
Kim’s score of 98.75 flirted with perfection. That was fitting in a way because Kim is as close to it as anyone in her sport.
A day earlier, Jamie Anderson cemented herself as an all-time great by defending her Olympic slopestyle title on a day that will go down as one of the most unpleasant, dangerous days snowboarding has ever seen.
Her modest score of 83 still resulted in a blowout of nearly seven points over silver medalist Laurie Blouin of Canada.