Norman Castro
EBC New York Bureau
NEW YORK — The Winter Olympics is when obscurity becomes mainstream. Baseball, football, basketball, soccer, and alike get put in the backburner for other sports. Hockey, ice skating, skiing, curling, and snowboarding are among these sports that take center stage during the two-week event held every four years. South Korea plays host at this year’s Olympics, where the athletes of these sports take the spotlight.
Snowboarding has grown in popularity amongst the youth today. The niche of snowboarding has blossomed over the last 20 years, with names like Kelly Clark and Shaun White grabbing headlines, but the 2018 Olympics will be known as the place where the torch is passed and the coronation of the new queen of snowboarding is crowned in 17-year old Chloe Kim.
The pre-Olympics hype for Kim is real. Two years ago, Kim became the first female athlete to land back to back 1080’s in competition. She was also the first athlete to win three X Games gold medals before the age of 16. And if that wasn’t enough, she actually qualified for the Sochi Olympics in 2014 at the tender age of 13. Due to age restrictions, she wasn’t able to compete. Some athletes succumb to the pressure that the Olympics bring. Time and time again, favorites falter and underdogs arise. Will Kim be able to grab the reigns and sit atop the throne which the pundits have placed her in?
The answer to the question came into the medal runs Tuesday morning where Kim shined with top scores during the preliminary runs and earned the first seed placement. With the luxury of going last in the field of 12 athletes, she had plenty of time contemplate her upcoming runs. If her scores of 90+ runs during the qualification round didn’t do it, her first run definitely put the rest of the field on notice.
Kim started off her run with huge air with a backside grab on her first hit then going straight into the frontside 1080. She followed up with cab 720, frontside 900 with tail grab, a mctwist and ending with a corked out 720. Less than a handful of competitors were even going for the 1080 spin, let alone adding the 900 and that many 720s. The difficulty of her run outshined the rest of the 11 competitors and it showed with an opening score of 93.75 which rocketed her into first place. The rest of the competition as rider after rider continued to chase only to come short.
As the runs of the fellow competitors continued to progress, the other women were fighting for their spots on the podium. Liu Jiayu already locked her silver medal and went for a 1080 on her last run but failed to land it. It was finally inevitable that Kim was going to win the gold. On her third and final run, this was more of a formality, a victory lap. She had no reason to go for anything except to cement her place in history. As the fierce competitor, she started off her final run as she did her first run. But after hitting her first 1080, she linked it with a second 1080, making her the first women’s competitor to land back-to-back 1080’s in the Olympics. This run topped her first with a whopping 98.25.
From her gold medal performance on Tuesday, Kim became the next queen of snowboarding. The significance of this win? She knows that this is special as she is a first-generation American winning on the home soil of her parents, who immigrated from South Korea.
Sharing the podium with fellow American Ariel Gold who won bronze, the USA Snowboarding team looks to be dominant for years to come. While the rest of the field continues to chase after the difficulty, style, and finesse that Kim currently brings to the table, don’t think for an instance that she will settle down and take it. She sits on top of the throne but she will continue to push the sport further as the boundaries of snowboarding halfpipe get expanded by her dominance.
