Chloe Kim's Dad Quit His Engineering Job To Help Propel Her Olympic Dreams Forward
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Sorry to do this to you, but Chloe Kim is back in the Olympics—so break out the tissues! Because this family story has me Crying in the Club (s/o to Camila Cabello).
If you watched the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, you’re probably familiar with Ms. Chloe. She was the 17-year-old sensation from California who tore up the women’s halfpipe in snowboarding, winning her a gold medal and making her the youngest female snowboarder to do so. You go, girl!
She also completed back-to-back 1080s, and instead of pretending I understand the mechanics, I will point you to the source material because wow! This girl is just flipping in all sorts of different directions.
If you don’t remember that, perhaps you remember her dad’s unbelievably adorable handmade sign. And if not, you must take a look. I mean...this will make even the most cold-hearted human well up.
Here’s everything you need to know about Chloe as she makes her triumphant return to the Olympic stage in Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
Chloe started snowboarding at 4 with her dad, Jong Jin Kim.
Jong Jin Kim, Chloe’s dad, stole hearts when he unfurled a homemade sign at the 2018 games. This man, who does not mess around when it comes to his daughter, bore a simple message: Go, Chloe!
“Dad has been a big part of my snowboarding career. He actually dragged me to the mountain when I was 4, to convince my mom to go snowboarding with him,” Chloe said in interviews during her last Olympics. And the rest...is history.
Chloe's dad emigrated to California in 1982.
Jong Jin emigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1982. When he settled in Southern California, he took minimum-wage jobs. He then attended college at El Camino College in Torrance, where he worked as a machinery operator by night, per the New York Times.
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
Jong Jin quit his job to support her Olympic dreams.
He quit his job to help propel his daughter to the top of her game and called Chloe his personal American dream. “It’s just great ’cause it’s kind of the American dream, American dream come true. It’s the land of opportunity. Why not?” he told USA Today at the time. “I was very stressed because everyone was saying Chloe was going to win gold, but no one knows the result—that I cannot control,” Jong Jin, told CNN. “Now I’m happy, all the stress is gone. I’m the dad of an Olympic gold medalist, not many people have this kind of feeling.”
Jong Jin used to drive six hours so Chloe could practice.
When it was clear that Chloe wanted to take snowboarding seriously, Jong Jin would drive her from Torrance, California to the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area so she could practice, per People. “My dad would load me into the car under a pile of blankets in the middle of the night so I could sleep the whole way and be on the mountain when it opened,” Chloe recounts, per Cosmopolitan. Talk about dedication!
Chloe traveled to Korea nearly every year to spend time with family and cousins.
"It's cool. I feel like I have another life," she told the Washington Post. Because of this, she's fluent in Korean.
Chloe lived in Switzerland for two years.
She also speaks French, having spent time with an aunt in Switzerland.
Chloe has two gold medals from the 2016 Youth Olympics.
In addition to her 2018 halfpipe win, Chloe got two gold medals at the 2016 Lillehammer Winter Youth Olympic Games—winning both the halfpipe and slopestyle gold.
Chloe is the first-ever athlete to win all four major snowboarding titles.
She won in the Olympics, Worlds, Youth Olympics, and X Games, according to her Olympics bio.
Chloe made a video thanking her parents and it’s everything.
Family is everything to Chloe, and it really shows through her closeness to her parents. In a new short film called “Always There” she thanks her parents for their support and shows a bit of a behind-the-scenes look into the Kim household.
“One of the scenes we filmed was me pouring seaweed soup, Miyeok-guk, into a container. That was important to me because my dad would travel with me and we travel across the world to go find snow and find the best halfpipe for me to train in,” Chloe told People. “Miyeok-guk was my favorite dish that my mom made. My mom would always make me a big batch before we went, putting it in containers for us to take on the road. Miyeok-guk was just one of those things that we got to bring a little piece of home with us across the world, wherever we were. That was probably one of my favorite scenes because I think that might be one of my favorite memories growing up traveling,”
The voice-over on the video is probably the sweetest thing I’ve heard: "When I was younger, I needed you. Right there with me. To feel safe, confident, like I could do anything," Chloe says. "Until I realized, even when you weren't by my side, you were always here. Always with me."
No matter what the outcome of these games, the Kims win in my book!
You Might Also Like
