Things You Don't Know About Chloe Kim

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10 hours ago

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00:01Prepare to hear the name Chloe Kim a lot more often.

00:04The California native made headlines after winning gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in

00:08Pyeongchang, South Korea.

00:10But despite the media coverage, there's still a lot of things you don't know about Chloe

00:14Kim.

00:15Home away from home

00:16Chloe's journey to the 2018 Winter Olympics is especially rewarding, as the athlete's

00:21parents are actually from South Korea, immigrating to America in the 1980s.

00:25And while Chloe herself was born in America, she still speaks fluent Korean and is obviously

00:39proud of her roots.

00:41I can represent my family's country and the U.S. as well, and I don't think a lot of people

00:45will get to do that, so I'm really excited for that opportunity.

00:50Early beginnings

00:51While most kids were learning their ABCs, Chloe was well on her way to hitting the halfpipe.

00:56At just four years old, her father, Jong Jin Kim, bought her first snowboard.

01:00Chloe told Cosmopolitan he did it in order to trick his wife into hitting the slopes with

01:03him.

01:04He bought me a $40 snowboard on eBay and was like, let's go snowboarding.

01:08Not because he wanted me to be a professional or anything, I was the bait.

01:11He told my mom,

01:12Your daughter is doing something dangerous, so you'd be a bad mom not to come.

01:17Sounds kind of harsh, but though his wife may not have gotten into snowboarding, at least

01:20Jong Jin found a snowboarding partner in his young daughter.

01:24Daddy-daughter bonding

01:25Before ever dreaming about making it to the Olympics, Chloe and her father simply snowboarded

01:30for fun, learning the sport together.

01:32But while they both started practicing around the same time, Chloe appeared to acclimate

01:35to the winter activity more quickly than her dad.

01:38When asked about how long it took for Chloe to become better at snowboarding than him,

01:41Jong Jin admitted to NBC News that it happened right away.

01:44When she was five, she's already better than me.

01:47Yeah, he was still falling off the chairlift when I was cruising by him.

01:52As a third grader, Chloe got the chance of a lifetime when she moved to Switzerland for

01:55two years.

01:56There, she learned how to speak French, training with her dad when he'd come to visit her.

02:00Together, she and Jong Jin would wake up at 4 a.m., hop on two trains, and then travel via

02:04a gondola lift to arrive at France's Avoriez mountain, where they'd spend the day on the

02:08halfpipe.

02:09Now that's dedication.

02:11Making history

02:12Though 2018 was her first trip to the Olympics, she qualified once before.

02:17Well, sort of.

02:18Four years earlier, she scored high enough in qualifying to earn a trip to the 2014 Winter

02:23Games in Sochi, but wasn't allowed to go because she was just 13 years old.

02:27She followed that up by making history in 2016 at the Snowboarding Grand Prix in Park

02:31City, Utah, becoming the first female snowboarder to ever land consecutive 1080s in competition,

02:37which earned her the first perfect 100 score in women's snowboarding history.

02:41That was all prelude to her big moment at the 2018 Winter Olympics, where she repeated

02:45her signature double 1080 trick, becoming the first woman to land it at the Olympics.

02:49The run earned her nearly a perfect score of 98.25, beating her rival Lu Xiaoyu of China

02:55by nearly 10 points and becoming the youngest female gold medalist in Olympic snowboarding

03:00history.

03:01Talk about making your mark.

03:02Her number one fan

03:04Given her popularity in the snowboarding community, Khloe surely has thousands of fans — millions

03:09now, since she's competed in front of the world at the Olympics — but she's had the

03:12same number one fan since her earliest days hitting the slopes — her dad, who told CNN

03:17Sport he was extremely nervous watching her compete at the Olympics.

03:20I was very stressed, because everyone was saying Khloe was going to win gold, but no one knows

03:25the result.

03:26That I cannot control.

03:27Now, I'm happy.

03:28All the stress is gone.

03:29I'm the dad of an Olympic gold medalist.

03:32Not many people have this kind of feeling.

03:34Time to celebrate, Dad!

03:36Teenage dream

03:37Despite her various medals and history-making accomplishments, Khloe is still just a typical

03:42teenage girl.

03:43She enjoys going for walks with her dog, Reese, hitting the mall, eating yummy snacks, and playing

03:47with her hair color.

03:48She even has big dreams for a future beyond snowboarding, as she's working hard to achieve

03:52her goal of attending Harvard University.

03:54And I kinda wanna check college out, you know?

03:56I've never been to a real school before, so, you know, what's it gonna be like?

04:00And her dad definitely approves, telling Bleacher Report,

04:03We worked so hard.

04:05Now she's going to go to college.

04:06She's a student, and she's got to go study hard.

04:09Snowboarding is what you do when you're young.

04:11Who knows how much longer she's going to keep snowboarding.

04:13I just want her to study hard.

04:15She's got to go have a good experience in college.

04:17I just hope she lives as a happy girl.

04:19If her focus for school is anything like her drive for snowboarding, we'd say Khloe has

04:22a bright future ahead of her.

Things You Don't Know About Chloe Kim

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