La Palma: Spinning, flipping, flitting from one place to the next, Chloe Kim speaks in much the same way she rides the half-pipe, with breathless velocity and startling twists.
“Snowboarding brought me out of my shell,” she says. “You know, if you meet someone for the first time, they’re not going to bite you.”
Sitting before a clutch of reporters, looking every bit the Southern California teenager in lipstick and blond highlights.
Grit and daring have made this 17-year-old from La Palma a prodigy in her sport. The first woman to land back-to-back 1080s — two triple-spins in a flash — she is expected to medal at the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics.
But if the Games serve as a watershed moment in her career, athleticism will be only part of the equation.
The US State Department recently enlisted Kim, a first-generation Korean American, for a goodwill tour of South Korea, where the Olympics will take place. NBC has placed her at the forefront of its promotional spots, and corporate sponsors love her connection with a young demographic.
Sheer personality could make this self-proclaimed “girlie girl” a crossover star in the vein of fellow snowboarder Shaun White.
“She is going to play very well on TV,” says Andrew Rohm, a marketing professor at Loyola Marymount University. “This is her coming-out party on the world stage.”
At first glance, nothing about Kim — not her slim build or bright smile or the pitch of her voice — hints at the ferocity with which she attacks the 22-foot walls of the half-pipe.
Speed translates into big air. This amplitude buys precious time to do things no one has seen in women’s snowboarding.
“Ridiculously talented,” says Rick Bower, a US national coach. “She has a huge bag of tricks.”
It all started with her father, Jong Jin-kim, who years ago wanted to try snowboarding. When his wife refused to join him, he instead brought their daughter up to the Mountain High resort.
“He took me as bait so he could be like, your 4-year-old daughter is here with me on the mountain, do you know how dangerous that is? You’re a bad mom for not coming with her,” Kim recalls.
Southern California’s warm climate might not seem conducive to winter sports, but White — the Michael Jordan of snowboarding — grew up near San Diego, honing his skills in the San Bernardino Mountains.
Two aspects of Kim’s early start laid a foundation for success.
So small at first, she could not afford to cautiously zigzag across the pipe. The preschooler needed to take a riskier path, angling downhill to generate enough pace to launch herself even a few feet off the lip.
And though she was a natural “goofy-foot,” riding with her right foot forward, her dad made her practice regular-foot until she was comfortable either way.
“That’s not normal,” Bower says. “Her ability to ride switch-stance is pretty amazing.”
After winning her first junior competition at 6, Kim spent two years living with an aunt in Switzerland, making weekly trips to the Alps. She then returned to Los Angeles and joined the developmental program at Mammoth Mountain.
As his daughter’s skills continued to blossom, Jong decided to quit his job as an engineer.
“He went home and just told my mom, ‘I’m done working, I’m going to make my daughter an Olympian’,” Kim says.
Jong would drag himself out of bed in the early morning, bundling his daughter into the car, letting her sleep as he drove hours north to Mammoth Lakes.
Though not quite as confident about future stardom, Kim gladly threw herself into riding, which she considered “a good obsession.” People started noticing her on the mountain.
“Just this tiny little girl,” Bower recalls. “But she could go so big out of the pipe.”
The first milestone came in 2014 when a 13-year-old Kim performed a stunning final run, capped by consecutive 720s, to take silver at the X Games. Veteran rider Kelly Clark, who won that day, figures it was the start of something historic.
“She’s one of the most talented young riders I’ve ever seen,” Clark says.
One after another, Kim mastered her sport’s mid-air acrobatics — the spins, flips and rotation. Her relaxed style belied the strength and conviction required to perform such tricks.
Only a minimum-age requirement kept her out of the 2014 Winter Olympics as she began rattling off a string of podium finishes at competitions around the world. The media dubbed her an overnight success, a natural-born talent.
That did not sound right to her coach.
“It took a decade of very hard work,” Bower says. “She’s committed to doing the nasty stuff that no one likes to do, improving the things she’s not good at.”
