You’d be forgiven for disbelieving the smile on Chloe Kim’s face Thursday night in Livigno, Italy, after she finished with a silver medal in the women’s Olympic halfpipe snowboarding finals. Kim’s victories at the Olympics are typically inevitable. And after she finished first in qualifying earlier in the week, it seemed she had shaken the effects of the dislocated left shoulder she suffered back in early January. Winners refuse to accept second place, right?
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But upon further review, Kim’s jubilant reception of the silver medal at the Milano Cortina Games made all kinds of sense. In fact, this hardware may wind up meaning more to her than the golds she took home from PyeongChang in 2018 and Beijing four years ago.
“Absolutely,” says Kim. “I mean, a month ago, I wasn’t even sure if I would be here. I could get emotional thinking about it. I really worked hard to get here. So this metal means so much.”
Following the competition, she walked down a snowy hill at the Livigno Snow Park halfpipe venue, hand-in-hand with her boyfriend, Myles Garrettof the Cleveland Browns, the NFL’s reigning defensive player of the year, who stood with Kim’s family and friends at the bottom of the halfpipe, snapping photos of Kim in action. “Exciting but terrifying,” Garrett said, about watching Kim contort her body in the air on a snowboard.
She’s got reason to be happy, personally and professionally. The new Olympic gold medalist, Goan Choi of South Korea, is now the youngest Olympic snowboard gold medalist, at 17 years, 101 days. Kim, who was also 17 when she won Olympic gold in PyeongChang, has become a mentor for Choi. If Kim walks away from snowboarding—“I’m aware that I can’t do this forever,” she says—she’d leave the sport in good hands.
“She’s my baby. I’ve known her since she was so little, and I’m so proud of her,” says Kim. “It means so much to me to know that I’ve inspired a whole new generation.”
Read more: Chloe Kim on Going for Her Third Olympic Gold, Her Pet Snake, and Her NFL Boyfriend
The night began in typical Chloe Kim fashion. Seven of the 12 finalists fell in their first run in snowy conditions, which made landing tricks more of a challenge. But Kim made no such mistakes, and her run was visibly superior, even through the snowfall. Her score, at 88.00, led the competition.
Each Olympic halfpipe finalist gets three runs, with the highest score the only one that counts. Could anyone surpass Kim in the final two runs? It had never happened before in the Games.
Kim had even held back in her first run. “I’ll admit, I went pretty safe on it,” she says. “Didn’t go as big as I was in practice, mainly because I was watching all these girls take slams, and I was like, let’s just get to the bottom.”
Entering her second run, Kim still held the lead. She tried to stretch her limits. “I wanted to try something I’d never done before,” says Kim. “I wanted to make history.” She fell.
Choi had a scary-looking accident in her first run; she remained in the middle of the halfpipe for a few minutes while receiving medical attention, but was able to ride to the bottom of her own accord. Choi thought about dropping out of the event.
Instead, she stunned the Livigno Snow Park by scoring a 90.25 on her final run, upping the evening’s ante. For the first time at the Olympics, Kim trailed. So she’d have to come through in the evening’s final attempt. “My coach said, you know, you could do your first run better, or you can go for it,” says Kim. “I wanted to go for it. Because that’s what I do.”
She fell again, allowing Choi to claim the gold. “The snow really started to come down, the wall started to get a little sticky,” says Kim. “No excuses here. I should have made that mental note when I dropped in and felt it on my first hit. Yeah, I couldn’t come through. But all good.”
Kim made a beeline for Choi to congratulate her. “She took a heavy slam, got back up and won the damn thing,” says Kim. “That is badass.” Choi is not only the youngest Olympic snowboarding champion: she’s also the youngest X-Games halfpipe titleist ever, winning the event in 2023 and unseating Kim for that distinction as well.
Kim fell short in her bid to be the first snowboarder to win three straight Olympic golds. “I don’t know if there really was a weight on my shoulders,” she says. “I feel like every time I go into a competition, it’s always like, ‘Oh, she can make history here. She could do this. She could do that.’ I’m just here to snowboard and whatever medal I get in doing so, great.”
On Kim’s itinerary upon her U.S. reentry: shoulder surgery. “I’m excited for it to not be popping out all the time,” she says. Kim believes the injury cost her the key pre-Games training time needed to execute a flawless plan.
Not that she’s at all bummed about it. “In my eyes, I’m a winner,” says Kim. “Because I was able to persevere and fight through.”
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