Teen snowboarder Chloe Kim still has fun despite expectations

ASPEN, Colo. – Chloe Kim packs a snowball together before tossing it a few feet away for Reese, her 5-month-old mini Australian shepherd, to fetch.

The family pet is the newest fun diversion for the 16-year-old snowboarding phenom who has become one of the best riders in the world.

Kim’s breakthrough season three years ago qualified her for the Sochi Games, but she was too young at 13 to compete there. In the time since, she’s balanced her progression in the sport with growing sponsor obligations with an upbeat approach to everything she does.

“I think I’ve started to have a lot more fun around snowboarding, even going out of the halfpipe and going to hit some jumps or getting some pow,” Kim says. “That definitely made it a lot more fun to me just adding that much positivity into snowboarding.”

Without question, it has paid off. Kim will be 17 when the Pyeongchang Olympics kick off a year from now, and she’ll be a heavy favorite not just to make the U.S. team (officially, this time) but to contend for a gold medal.

As she prepared for the X Games last month, Kim reflected on a run that saw her win eight consecutive contests.

Though she finished third in that competition — her fifth career X Games medal —she had little disappointment.

“I don’t snowboard to win everything. I do it because I love it,” she said. “I do it because I have fun, and everyone else can think whatever they want. For me, it’s all about fun and I enjoy it so much.”

For Kim, who started snowboarding at age 4, that often means time away from the pipe, either hitting a terrain park or riding on a powder day. It also means being a somewhat normal teenager — with trips to the mall and to dye her hair everything from pink to blue — even as she balances sponsors and her riding.

“It just makes me more excited to ride pipe instead of me just riding pipe all the time,” she said.

In the pipe, Kim is breathtaking. Known for her amplitude, she often soars more than 12 feet out of the 22-foot halfpipe.

And since her breakthrough season, she has progressed her riding. Kim’s newest trick was a 900 when she won X Games silver at 13, and she has since progressed to landing cab 1080s.

Last year, she became the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s in the halfpipe.

“I think my riding has hopefully gotten a lot better, but I’m always trying to push myself,” she said.

During her streak of eight wins, Kim became the first athlete to win three X Games gold medals before 16 and picked up golds in halfpipe and slopestyle at the Youth Olympic Games.

Rather than see the expectations that come from her success as pressure, Kim views it as support. And she has plenty, including within the sport where she has garnered the respect of veteran riders like Kelly Clark, the winningest snowboarder ever, and two-time Olympic champion Shaun White.

Both train at the same home mountain, Mammoth in California, as Kim.

“It’s just awesome to see someone like her step out into the limelight just because she’s this really sweet girl. She’s really talented,” said White. “She’s kind of got that whole package going for her. And her riding is great and it speaks for itself.”

That package includes a bubbly personality and fearless riding sure to make her a hit in Pyeongchang. Already, Kim is part of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s year-out events for the Games.

Since her breakthrough 2013 season, Kim has added Monster, Toyota, Nike, GoPro and beauty brand Laneige as sponsors.

“It’s not something that I absolutely hate,” she says of the obligations, “but it is different because when I was 13 it was just like snowboard and go.”

Those fun diversions are part of what Kim now balances as she prepares for Pyeongchang.

It will be a homecoming of sorts for Kim, whose parents, Jong Jin and Boran, emigrated from Korea, where the family still has relatives.

That reunion will come at the end of a journey she’s already familiar with. In 2014, Kim didn’t face the pressure of qualifying.

But having a front row seat to the process, and already proving herself in the pipe, has Kim ready for what’s next.

“To me, the Olympics are very important, obviously, but it’s not something that I’m gonna change everything for,” she said. “I’m just gonna snowboard the way I do and do the same thing I would do at any other contest and see where that takes me.”

If it’s anywhere close to where Kim has gone the past three years, it’s going to be one heck of a ride.