American snowboarder Chloe Kim has become the first woman to successfully defend the Olympic halfpipe title, soaring to an untouchable lead with a gigantic opening run and cruising to a historic repeat gold.
Kim, dropping in last among the 12 competitors to qualify for Thursday morning’s final, set the bar with a huge first run which included two 1080s and three spins down the course known as the Secret Garden Olympic Halfpipe, covering her mouth and dropping to her knees in jubilation upon seeing her score of 94.00 announced.
She fell on her subsequent runs while trying to debut the 1260 – three and a half revolutions in the air – but the sheer amplitude for her opening foray was more than enough to secure the gold over Queralt Castellet of Spain, who earned the silver with a score of 90.25, and Sena Tomita of Japan, whose 88.25 was good for bronze.
Kim’s resounding win played out before an audience that included her friend Eileen Gu, the freeskier from California who captured the freestyle big air gold on Tuesday competing for China. The two embraced at the bottom of the pipe before Kim headed back up for her final attempt.
“I was so proud of myself,” an elated Kim said in the aftermath. “I had the worst practice, ever. I probably landed my run twice when I’m used to landing it eight times, normally, and so that puts you in a weird headspace. It felt so inconsistent. I didn’t want to feel all that pressure of having to land my first safety run (in competition). I overflowed with emotion when I was able to land it on the first go, and it opened up a lot of opportunity for me to go try something new (in her second and third runs).”
She added: “I have been in this situation many times. I’ve been competing professionally since I was 13, so that’s almost 10 years now. I reset and reminded myself that it’s just another run. I have a brand new opportunity to go land it, and that calms me down a lot.”
Kim, 21, first shot to global stardom four years ago in Pyeongchang, when she became the youngest female athlete to secure Winter Olympics gold on snow with a transcendent performance that included back-to-back 1080s.
But she quickly found the trappings of fame – gracing the fronts of cereal boxes and magazine covers, getting name-checked in Frances McDormand’s Oscar speech – were dwarfed by her yearning for a normal life as a college student at Princeton.
After nearly two years off the mountain Kim picked up right where she left off with a world title, crediting her decision to start therapy and focus on her mental health with helping rekindle her competitive fire.
She’s won every halfpipe event she’s entered since Pyeongchang, which created a sense of suffocating pressure around her Olympic title defense at Zhangjiakou Genting Snow Park, the sparkling new venue nestled in the tree-lined southern foot of Xiaohaituo Mountain. But Kim’s imperious opening run quickly sucked any drama from the competition, turning the affair into a repeat coronation.
Kim adds a second Olympic gold to an overflowing trophy case that includes a Youth Olympic title, two world titles, two Crystal Globes, six X Games titles and 10 wins from 14 World Cup starts. More importantly, she will depart Beijing better equipped to manage the resurgence of celebrity that awaits back home.
“I am more prepared this time,” Kim said. “Luckily, it was a learning curve since the last time. Now that I’ve grown up a little more and I understand boundaries and I have an amazing therapist, so I think it will make the journey a lot more doable.”
