Chloe Kim, American snowboarder
Credit: © Cameron Spencer, Getty Images

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Chloe Kim brought home the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe snowboarding event at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games held in Beijing, China. The halfpipe is an acrobatic event performed in a deep trough. Kim also won the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe event at the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In Pyeongchang, she became the youngest woman to win a snowboarding gold medal in the Winter Olympics. In Beijing, Kim became the first woman to win multiple Olympic golds in the women’s halfpipe snowboarding event.

Kim won the snowboarding gold medal in the women’s halfpipe competition during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Credit: © Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

Kim has also gained international success in slopestyle events. In slopestyle, competitors perform on special courses that feature various obstacles. Kim was too young to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. However, at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, she won gold medals in both the halfpipe and slopestyle. She thus became the first American woman to win a snowboarding gold medal at the Youth Olympic competition.

Kim had previously earned international recognition for her performances in the X Games, an action sports competition held in the summer and winter and modeled on the Olympics. She won a silver medal in the superpipe, a variation of the halfpipe, at the 2014 Winter X Games. In 2015 and 2016, she won three X Games gold medals in the superpipe. In 2016, Kim became the first female to score a perfect 100 in the superpipe at the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix. She won the gold medal in the superpipe at the X Games again in 2018, 2019, and 2021.

Kim was born on April 23, 2000, in Long Beach, California. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from South Korea. Kim began snowboarding at the age of 4 and began competing as a member of Team Mountain High in California at the age of 6. She trained in Switzerland from the ages of 8 to 10 and then returned to the United States. In the fall of 2019, Kim enrolled at Princeton University, in New Jersey. She took a leave of absence from her studies in 2020 to concentrate on snowboarding.

Katie Ledecky is a champion American swimmer. Ledecky has set world records in the women’s 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle events. © Jae C. Hong, AP Photo

Two swimmers raced neck and neck down the lane in the women’s 400-meter freestyle in Tokyo, Japan, for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. Representing America was Katie Ledecky. She received a silver medal, hitting the wall just 0.67 seconds after Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus. Hope was not lost for Ledecky. Just one hour after a fifth place finish in the 200-meter freestyle on July 27, 2021, she dove back into the pool for the 1,500-meter freestyle finals. In a shining example of stamina, Ledecky snatched the gold medal in the longest race in the pool and the first time women competed that distance in the Olympic Games.

Ledecky is a champion American swimmer. Ledecky set world records in the 800-meter and 1,500-meter women’s freestyle races in 2013, and a world record in the 400-meter freestyle race in 2014. She later broke each record at least once. Ledecky was a star of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won individual gold medals in the 200-meter, 400-meter, and 800-meter races, setting world records in the last two events. She also won a gold medal as a member of the 800-meter freestyle relay and a silver medal as a member of the 400-meter freestyle relay.

Ledecky first gained international recognition in 2012. In that year she was the surprise winner of the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle at the age of 15 at the Summer Olympic Games in London. She was the youngest American athlete to participate in the 2012 games. Ledecky won 4 gold medals at the 2013 FINA World Swimming Championships in Barcelona, Spain, and 5 gold medals at the 2015 championships in Kazan, Russia. FINA is the world governing body for the sport of swimming. At the 2017 championships in Budapest, Hungary, Ledecky won 5 more gold medals. She won another gold medal at the 2019 championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Her total of 15 career gold medals is a record for women swimmers.

Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky was born in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 1997. She became a national swimming star in high school in Bethesda, Maryland. She set American records in the 500-meter freestyle twice, and the national high school record in the 200-meter freestyle twice. Following the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, Ledecky entered Stanford University on an athletic scholarship. In 2018, Ledecky announced that she was turning professional. Her decision meant she would be ineligible to swim in college events, but she would still be eligible for the Olympic Games.