At 17, American snowboarder Chloe Kim has completed her rise to superstar with a stunning gold medal victory in Pyeongchang. The California teen was already assured of gold after scoring 93.75 in the first run of the women's halfpipe final, but she ended up making history on her third run, the AP reports. She scored an amazing 98.25 with back-to-back 1080-degree spins, one on each side of the halfpipe, a feat never accomplished before by a female at the Olympics. "I knew if I went home with the gold medal knowing that I could do better, I wasn’t going to be very satisfied," she says. "That situation, I did put down a really good first run, but I was like, 'I can do better than that. I can one-up myself.' The third run was for me to prove to myself if I did it, and I could go home really happy and excited."
The win makes Kim the youngest female snowboarder to win Olympic gold, and the youngest female Team USA member to win gold on snow. The silver went to China's Liu Jiayu, and the bronze to Arielle Gold, another American. Before finals runs, Kim tweeted that she was "hangry" after not finishing her breakfast sandwich, reports the Washington Post. Afterward, the teen, whose parents are from South Korea, told reporters: "It means a lot just being able to do it where my family is from. A lot of pressure, but I’m happy I was able to do it here and do it for the fans and the family." Her father, who held a "Go Chloe" sign, shouted "American dream" when she was crowned champion, the Independent reports. "When I came to the United States, this was my American hope," Jong Jin Kim told reporters. "Now, this is my American dream." (More 2018 Olympics stories.)
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