In the midst of her latest streak of victories, Kim told Shape that, to get into that championship mode, ”I definitely think I switch mentally. I completely tune out, and I become a different person. I’m Chloe Kim, the snowboarder. But when I’m home, I’m Chloe Kim, the Cali girl. There’s a different Chloe when I’m on snow, and I love her. She’s the best.”
Happily, it sounds as though nowadays she has great affection for the other Chloe, too.
“I really do love snowboarding and I love being part of the progression of the sport,” Kim told reporters when she got to the Olympic Village in Beijing. She couldn’t wait to start practicing at the venue and, she assured, “I’m not burnt out. I was [for] a couple of years after [Pyeongchang], which is why I went to school. I was grateful that I did that, and now I’m excited to be here.”
“There is added pressure because it’s an Olympics,” she added, sharing that she’s been working on “amplitude as well as variety” and trying to “incorporate all four directions of spins.” But “I’ve been approaching it as just another contest. That’s the mental approach I’m taking.”
And yes, life got “very challenging” after she won gold in 2018, and it was “the only thing I could blame,” she recalled when asked why she initially threw her medal away. “But don’t worry, I got it out of the trash. It’s not in there anymore.”