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.

Erin Jackson of USA competing on the 500m during the 2021 ISU World Cup on November 12, 2021 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.
Credit: © Orange Pics BV/Alamy Images

The 2022 Winter Olympic Games commence this Friday, February 24, with the arrival of the legendary Olympic torch in Beijing, China. The torch was lit in Olympia, Greece, in October 2021 and began making its way to the Chinese capital. From February 2 to 4, it was carried by more than 1,000 people across the cities of Yanqing and Zhangjiakou and into Beijing. The procession included the first Olympic torch handover from robot to robot—underwater! Audiences were limited in person due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, so many watched the torch’s progress online.

The Games officially begin after the opening ceremony on Friday evening. The ceremony takes place at the National Stadium, nicknamed the “Bird’s Nest,” which was originally built for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The themes of the ceremony showcase China’s “willingness to pursue world peace” and celebrate the Beijing Games’ slogan, “together for a shared future.” However, multiple countries’ officials will not be attending the Games in protest of human rights violations.

Beijing National Stadium, known as the “Bird’s Nest”

To keep athletes and Beijing residents safe from illness, international spectators will not be allowed to attend the events, and additional safety measures have been put in place. There will be 3,000 performers at the ceremony. The vast majority will be teenagers, who are at low risk of long-term health effects from the disease. Small groups of spectators will be invited to watch events at the Games as long as they abide by COVID-19 safety protocols.

Beijing is holding a record number of sporting events, with 109. There are seven new events at the Beijing 2022 Olympics in skiing, snowboarding, and monobob—that is bobsledding with a single athlete. Many events focused on mixed-gender teams, giving Beijing the greatest balance of women’s and men’s events in the Olympics yet.

The mascot of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games is a panda named Bing Dwen Dwen, from the Chinese words meaning ice and children. The design features a spacesuit to embody the future and a heart on Bing Dwen Dwen’s left paw to symbolize Chinese hospitality.

February 27, 2018

Two days ago on Sunday, February 25, the Winter Olympic Games closed in South Korea after featuring more events than any previous winter games—102 to be exact. Four new events were introduced: a mixed team event for alpine skiing, curling mixed doubles, snowboarding’s big air, and a mass start for speed skating. Norwegians showed the rest of the world their prowess with 39 medals, and they tied Germany for the most gold medals (14). Germany had 31 total medals, Canada was third with 29, and the United States was fourth with 23.

U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim celebrates victory in the women’s snowboard halfpipe at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Credit: © Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

The United States earned unexpected gold medals in women’s hockey, women’s cross-country skiing, and men’s curling. The women earned Team USA’s first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 20 years by beating the dominant Canadian team in a shoot-out. Cross-country skiers Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall became the first American women to ever medal in their discipline, much less to take home the gold in the team sprint freestyle event. The men’s curling team brought the United States its first curling Olympic gold medal.

Alpine skiing had everyone’s attention with U.S. ladies Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn. Shiffrin won a gold in the women’s giant slalom and took home a silver in the women’s combined. Vonn missed the podium on the Super-G but came back for a bronze in the downhill event, making her the oldest woman (at age 33) to medal in alpine skiing at the winter games. Team USA’s Nick Goepper earned a silver in men’s freestyle skiing in the slopestyle event. In an exciting bobsled final run, the two-woman U.S. team Lauren Gibbs and Elana Meyers Taylor finished second for the silver. John Henry Krueger earned his silver in short-track speed-skating in the men’s 1000-meter race, the first individual U.S. speed skating medal in 8 years. U.S. freestyle skier Brita Sigourney brought home bronze in the women’s halfpipe.

The symbol ‘ㅍ’ represents the first consonant of the first syllable of PyeongChang in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, and expresses the harmony of Heaven, Earth and Man. ‘ㅊ’ depicts the first Korean consonant of the second syllable of PyeongChang in Hangeul, and represents snow, ice, and winter sports stars (athletes). Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjoergen became the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time at Pyeongchang. Ladies figure skating rivals and teammates Alina Zagitova and Yevgenia Medvedeva battled for the gold. Both skaters are Olympic Athletes from Russia. Medvedeva had been undefeated in competition from November 2015 until January 2018. She broke her own world record with two captivating Olympic performances, only to have it broken minutes later by Zagitova. Medvedeva won the silver, and Zagitova took the gold in a scarlet tutu.

February 15, 2018

Last Friday, February 9, the Winter Olympic Games opened in the town of Pyeongchang (sometimes written as PyeongChang) in northeastern South Korea. Pyeongchang sits among the Taebaek Mountains of Gangwon Province southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. The first week of the Winter Olympic Games saw outstanding performances on the ice and snow, but perhaps the most dramatic event occurred during the opening ceremonies when the North and South Korean teams marched together under a flag representing a unified Korea. The two nations, created in 1948, were embittered by the brutal Korean War (1950-1953), and they have been at odds ever since.

The North Korea and South Korea Olympic teams march together under the Korean Unification Flag during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games at Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium on Feb. 9, 2018. Credit: © Matthias Hangst, Getty Images

At Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, ornate performances and light shows punctuated international team arrivals, but the most dazzling—and historical—moment was when members of the North and South Korean teams marched into the stadium side-by-side. In the stands, South Korean president Moon Jae-in shook hands with Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Kim Yo-jong’s visit to South Korea is the first by a member of the North Korean ruling family since Kim Il-sung established North Korea as a Communist state in 1948. A combined North and South Korean women’s hockey team later competed in the games, but all other Korean athletes competed under their nation’s individual flag.

In the official Olympic emblem, the symbol ㅍ represents the first consonant of the first syllable of Pyeongchang in the Korean alphabet, (known as Hangeul), and expresses the “harmony of heaven, Earth, and man.” ㅊ depicts the first consonant of the second syllable of Pyeongchang, and represents “snow, ice, and winter sports stars (athletes).” Credit: © Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018

On the snow and ice, athletes from Norway, Canada, the Netherlands, and Germany jumped out to early medals in such cold-weather competitions as cross-country skiing, curling, speed skating, and ski jumping. United States snowboarders dominated as Redmond Gerard, Jamie Anderson, rising star Chloe Kim, and veteran boarder Shaun White won the first U.S. gold medals. U.S. alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin added a gold in the ladies’ giant slalom. Chris Mazder became the first U.S. athlete to medal in the luge, winning a surprising silver behind Austria’s David Gleirscher. In the team figure skating competition, the U.S. won bronze as Mirai Nagasu became the first American woman to land a triple axel jump (3 1/2 spins in mid-air) at the Olympics. The feat was accomplished previously by Japanese Olympians Midori Ito and Mao Asada. (Nagasu’s parents are also from Japan.) Canada won gold in the figure skating team competition, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) took silver. The International Olympic Committee banned Russia from competing as a team because of performance-enhancing drug use, but individual Russian athletes—cleared by drug tests—have been allowed to compete under the OAR banner.

High winds delayed or postponed many events, but the weather calmed to allow Austrian skiing great Marcel Hirscher to win a long-awaited first Olympic gold medal. Skiers from France and Sweden also picked up gold medals in the first week, and short-track speed skater Lim Hyo-jun earned the host country’s first gold medal.