Love you always, dad. Couldn’t have taken this wild ride without your and mom’s constant love and support. Check out our story from @proctergamble 😍#sponsored pic.twitter.com/wjFspVMAmi
— Chloe Kim (@ChloeKim) February 4, 2022
I saw Chloe Kim tweet this Proctor & Gamble television ad, which is also available on YouTube (but for some reason not embeddable):
“Because her dad was always there, Chloe Kim has the confidence to stand on her own.”
I just love it. From the 2018 Olympics, I knew that Chloe was especially close to her father, who spent lots of time driving her when she was a kid to the slopes to snowboard. This commercial is such a touching tribue to Chloe’s father. A lot of the footage looks to be actual home movie footage from Chloe’s parents and reminds me a little of some of the interactions I’ve had with my young nieces. I’m hoping great things again for Chloe for these Olympics.
Shortly after I saw this commercial, I came across this FiveThirtyEight article on Chloe and how dominant she is in her sport:
Four years later, Kim continues to set the tone for her peers. An anguished transition to celebrity life resulted in Kim leaving the sport for 22 months to briefly enroll at Princeton. She returned to snowboarding in January 2021 and has won every competition since: first the Laax Open, then the World Championship, then the U.S. Grand Prix, then the Laax Open again. Three of those four wins have had margins wider than 4.0 points, including the 2021 Laax Open, which was decided by a staggering 13.25.
Such is Kim’s dominance that any result less than gold in Beijing would register as an earthquake.
“She is the greatest women’s snowboarder of all time,” said Arielle Gold, who won a bronze medal in the halfpipe in Pyeongchang. “By far.”
Kim is the Olympic, Youth Olympic, World and six-time X Games champion in the halfpipe, the first athlete to hold all four titles. She has appeared in 29 career halfpipe events 3 and has won 22 times, including each of her past 11 starts. The margin for error in snowboarding is as thin as the board, and with each rider given just a handful of runs at each event, unmitigated dominance is incredibly rare. Kim has missed the podium only twice in her 14-start World Cup career and is undefeated at world championships and Olympics. She has never missed the podium in eight appearances at the X Games.
Kim will join U.S. snowboarding legend Shaun White as one of the most marketable athletes in Beijing. And although she’s 14 years younger than the Flying Tomato, Kim already has a legacy that rivals his.”
She competes in the half pipe qualifiers on Wednesday February 9, 9:30 AM Beijing time (Tuesday 8:30 PM EST), with the half pipe finals on Thursday, February 10, 9:30 AM Beijing time (Wednesday 8:30 PM EST ).
Best of luck to you Chloe, but I don’t think you need any luck!
