While most 17-year olds were working hard in school to attend their dream college, Chloe Kim was working hard to earn her chance to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics. This year, with constant hard work and dedication, she has finally made her dreams a reality.

In her continuous growth to becoming one of the biggest names in American Snowboarding, Chloe Kim has come to be an inspiration to girls everywhere.

Her snowboarding career started when she was 4 years old and ever since then, she has devoted all her efforts to becoming the star she is today. Though she had the talents to compete in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, she was unable to due to age restrictions. But with her sights set on PyeongChang 2018, she spent her time practicing even more and continuing to push the boundaries of snowboarding.

Chloe won her first X Games medal at the age of 13 and is now the youngest and only one in X Games history to earn 3 gold medals before the age of 16. One of the biggest highlights of her career was when she made history by earning a perfect score and landing back-to-back 1080s, both of which had never been done by a woman.

This year, she was able to add onto her long list of accomplishments with her big gold medal win in her parents’ native country, South Korea, at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. She is now the youngest woman to ever win an Olympic gold in the halfpipe event with an almost perfect score and for landing her famous back-to-back 1080s. This groundbreaking achievement is an indication of an even more promising future for both Chloe and the future of snowboarding as a sport.

Beyond all of her success as an athlete, Chloe is also an all around great person. She is a great role model to many young women of today. She is a trilingual, first generation, Korean American woman from California. She is the epitome of what can happen with hard work and dedication.

Another great aspect of Chloe is that she has shown people that her journey to getting this far in her career is one of a group effort. Sacrifices on all everyone’s part was made to help her reach success. Her father, for example, quit his job as an engineer to devote all of his time to supporting Chloe and her dream. All of the efforts to reach Chloe’s dream to be an Olympian was not only reached, but it surpassed all expectations of what it would be like.

In short, Chloe has shown people what it means to have a dream and stop at nothing to achieve your goals. It is possible to accomplish things no matter your age, gender, or background. For many, this is a message that can strongly resonate and inspire people, encouraging them to make a future that can change the world in countless ways.

<Madison Kim Notre Dame Academy 11th Grade>