[Olympics] Chloe Kim Retrieves Gold Medal from Trash Can Again, Gained Strength by Eating Miyeokguk

Korean-American athlete Chloe Kim (USA) is cheering on the podium with the American flag spread behind her back after winning the women's snowboard halfpipe final at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, China, on the 10th during the Beijing Winter Olympics. Photo by Yonhap News

Chloe Kim (22), who achieved the first-ever consecutive wins in the women's snowboard halfpipe at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, is from Torrance, Southern California, USA. She is a second-generation immigrant born to Kim Jong-jin and Yoon Bo-ran, who emigrated from Korea to the United States. Having spent two years in Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of eight, she is fluent in English, Korean, and French. She started snowboarding around the age of four. Recognizing his daughter's talent, her father quit his engineering job to become her full-time coach. Deeply appreciative of her parents' love, Chloe Kim posted a one-minute video on her social media ahead of the Beijing Olympics opening, saying, "My parents are truly indescribably precious to me." Previously, she had mentioned that her favorite food was seaweed soup made by her mother.

The fame she gained after winning the gold medal at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics became a burden. As someone who dislikes paying attention to others and has a free-spirited personality, the public's gaze was uncomfortable for her. In an interview with Time magazine before the Beijing Olympics, she revealed, "Right after the PyeongChang Olympics, I once walked into a sandwich shop in California wearing comfortable pajamas, and everyone stared at me, so I ran out of the store." She also suffered from racial slurs. She experienced severe stress to the point of wanting to throw away her precious gold medal in the trash.

Eventually, she stepped away from her snowboarding career. During the 22 months she put down her board, she sought a normal life and enrolled at Princeton University, a prestigious school on the U.S. East Coast. She then made a comeback in early last year. The New York Times described her as "somewhat reluctantly throwing herself back into the Olympic cycle," but despite the long hiatus, she demonstrated top-level skills.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.