As was foretold in the ancient texts, Chloe Kim fulfilled her destiny as snowboarding's golden girl, wowing the world, 1080ing into our hearts and snatching a gold medal from the sky. Everyone expected it, but still, nobody was ready. On Tuesday morning in PyeongChang, the 17-year-old snowboarder from Southern California, all smiles, won gold in the women's halfpipe. And she made it look easy.
Her first run set an extremely high bar, landing a backside air, frontside 1080, cab 720, frontside 900, McTwist and frontside inverted 720. (I have no idea what exactly these terms mean -- I just know they variously allude to awesome high-flying flippy things.) That run earned her a top score of 93.75, giving her a huge lead over the rest of the field... and eventually, the gold medal -- we just didn't quite know it yet.
On Chloe's second run, her attempt at back-to-back 1080s (again, I take this to mean two consecutive awesome high-flying flippy things) fell short. Back in 2016 -- at age 15 -- she became the first female athlete to land this notoriously difficult maneuver in an international competition.
But really, I'd like to think that on that second run, she got so much air, she momentarily considered not coming down and maybe just flying away, far away from us mere mortals. And that's why she messed up.
By the time her third and final run came around, she had already bagged the gold. None of her competitors even came close to her initial score. But Chloe wasn't done. Run number three was a victory lap, and maaaaaan, she put on a show, decisively landing the back-to-back 1080s and earning herself a badassly ridiculous score of 98.25. Because that's what she came to Korea to do.
"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," Chloe told NBC Sports. "So that third run was really just to prove to myself that I deserved it and did everything I could. I'm so happy."
Be happy, Chloe. Go have all the ice cream.
I hate crying but I'll give myself a pass for this one. Thank you everyone for the love! Stoked to bring home the gold pic.twitter.com/vxApf1lxbI
— Chloe Kim (@chloekimsnow) February 13, 2018
Ladies and gentlemen, your new Olympic champion, Chloe Kim.
More here: Chloe Kim Crushes the Competition to Win America's Third Snowboard Gold Medal at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics
