By Lisa Richwine
LOS ANGELES, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Twice Olympic gold medallist Chloe Kim is already one of the greatest snowboarders in the history of the sport and will aim to add to that legacy in the mountains of Italy next month.
At the Milan Cortina Winter Games, the American has a chance to become the only snowboarder to earn a third consecutive gold medal in the women's halfpipe.
The 25-year-old has been a strong favorite to win the event, but a recent injury disrupted her preparation. Kim dislocated
a shoulder during what she called "the silliest fall" on a training run in Switzerland.
While Kim said she was "good to go" for the Olympics, she will not be able to jump back on her board until just ahead of the February 11 start to the halfpipe competition in the Italian resort town of Livigno.
"I'm really disappointed that I can't snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard," Kim said in a video posted to Instagram this week. "I haven't got nearly the amount of reps I would have liked, but that's OK."
The halfpipe features riders sliding across a 22-foot-tall, U-shaped ramp and performing acrobatic tricks in the air. Kim took halfpipe gold in PyeongChang in 2018 and at Beijing 2022.
She was the first woman named to the U.S. snowboarding team for the 2026 Games, landing a spot last spring after winning the 2025 World Championships and was ranked the number one female snowboarder in the world.
"It's an amazing opportunity," Kim told Reuters shortly after she earned her Olympic slot. "I'm really excited, but I think in my mind and in my world, I also know that there's so much before that moment."
She said at the time that her biggest challenge going into the Olympics was staying healthy. "You still have to train and you still want to like maybe learn new tricks and try new runs, so there's always a higher risk factor there," she said.
THREE-PEAT ON THE CARDS
Kim towers so far above the field that she could pull off the gold medal three-peat even at less than her top form, said NBC Sports snowboarding analyst Todd Richards.
"If Chloe rides at 60% of her capacity, she will win a gold medal," said Richards, who competed at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. "There's not really anyone that holds a candle to her, as far as technicality."
Kim was born and raised in Southern California and started snowboarding at age four. Her father, a Korean immigrant to the United States, pushed her to try snowboarding. Once he saw signs of his daughter's talent, he quit his engineering job to coach her and drive her to training. In the summers, he enrolled her in diving and skateboarding to help with air awareness and tricks.
Kim had the skills to qualify for the Olympics at age 13. She was denied a spot on the U.S. team at the time only because she was too young.
At 17, her triumph in PyeongChang made her the youngest woman to win Olympic gold in snowboarding when she smoothly landed back-to-back 1080s (three spins in the air). She repeated as Olympic champion in 2022. The consecutive halfpipe golds were a first in women's snowboarding.
Her achievements made Kim a household name and elevated interest in snowboarding. She designed a collection of boarding apparel and accessories for fashion brand ROXY, feeding her love of fashion. Mattel created a Barbie doll in her likeness.
The path to success was not always smooth. Kim said she suffered from frustration and burnout after her first Olympics. She felt the pressure of being in the spotlight as well as serving as her family's breadwinner from age 13.
Amid public accolades, she faced some hateful comments on social media that she said harmed her mental health.
After breaking an ankle in 2019, she took two years off from the snow and enrolled in Princeton to seek a more normal life. Kim entered therapy and returned to competitive snowboarding in 2021, outshining her competition again.
Kim stands far above her rivals in part because of her competitiveness, analyst Richards said. Few women have come close to completing the tricks Kim has mastered, which has prompted her to try to incorporate some of the feats normally seen from male snowboarders.
Among her career highlights, Kim was the first to land a 1260 (3.5 spins) and a cab double cork 1080, three spins with a corkscrew-like rotation, in competition.
Her competitors in Livigno are likely to include American Maddie Mastro and Japan's Sena Tomita and Rise Kudo.
A strong performance by another snowboarder could force Kim to up her game by adding tricks with higher difficulty, Richards said.
Kim's fans "would love to see another one of these riders have the run of their lives and push Chloe to have to dig deep," Richards said. "That's when we get the best show."
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Ken Ferris)
