Southern California native Chloe Kim, 17, will show off her extraordinary halfpipe skills this week at Mammoth Mountain’s U.S. Snowboard & Freeski Grand Prix before she heads to her first Winter Olympic Games in February. The snowboard star, who is the only woman to have ever landed back-to-back 1080s in competition, is expected to medal in PyeongChang and get some serious airtime, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
Kim’s career started at a young age thanks to her dad, Jong Jin Kim, who insisted on bringing his four-year-old daughter to Mountain High resort to try snowboarding. It wasn’t long before young Kim’s talents and consistent hard work led to winning competitions and catapulting her to the top of the snowboarding ranks, prompting Jong Jin to quit his engineering job to dedicate his life to making her an Olympian. (Learn more about their endearing relationship with this video of the duo.)
All those early-morning drives to Mammoth Mountain paid off, and the Korean-American family will head to the Games for the first time in February. (Kim would have qualified for the 2014 Games, but at 14, she did not meet the minimum age requirement.)
The PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games will kick off February 9, with Kim's first qualifying event slated for February 12.