In spite of an injury to her shoulder, one of the greatest snowboarders in history will be ‘good to go’ for the Winter Olympics in just a few weeks time.
Chloe Kim, the back-to-back Olympic halfpipe champion, will look to win three Gold medals in a row in Italy in February during the games hosted by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
On Tuesday, Kim provided an update after revealing that she dislocated her shoulder during an awkward up-slope fall in an Instagram post last week.
‘The bad news is that I tore my labrum. I’m not surprised by that, but it’s official,’ Kim said in the video.
‘The good news is that I just tore my labrum and I guess there are two different ways to do it – and the way that I did it is less severe than the other so I’m really happy about that.
‘Obviously, I’m really disappointed that I can’t snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard,’ she said.
Snowboarding star Chloe Kim will compete at the 2026 Olympics after tearing her labrum
Kim, who is dating Cleveland Browns star Myles Garrett, suffered a fall in training last week
‘I haven’t gotten nearly the amount of reps that I would have liked, but that’s OK. You know, it’s funny, I’ve been doing this for so long and every season I am met with a different set of challenges — so I guess this is going to be the one this year.’
Kim says that she will be ‘good to go’ for the Olympics and, in the meantime, gets to wear a ‘really sexy shoulder brace’ that she said was ‘really uncomfortable’.
The injury will keep her out of the LAAX Open in Switzerland, which she described as one of her favorite events.
Kim, who is dating Cleveland Browns superstar Myles Garrett, revealed last week that she took the ‘silliest fall’ during her second day in training. The extent of the damage was revealed after she underwent an MRI.
‘I am not in that much pain,’ Kim said last week. ‘Obviously I just don’t want it to keep popping out. So just trying to stay really optimistic. I feel good about where my snowboarding is at right now’.
The caption to her post read: ‘trying to stay positive through these moments so difficult. I have gone through so many waves of emotions I literally have a migraine.
‘The only thing I can do is rest/do everything in my power to come back as soon as possible. thank you all for supporting me on this wild journey! will keep you posted 🙂 p.s I think I am getting old’.
The 25-year-old has qualified for her third Olympic games, but has long been recognized as among the most talented snowboarders to ever strap in.
Even at age 14 she was making a name for herself, becoming the youngest gold medalist at the X Games (at the time) in 2015. However, she was just barely too young to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The tear is not serious enough to keep Kim, 25, from competing in Italy in Febraury
Kim is the reigning back-to-back halfpipe champion and could make history if she wins a third
She truly announced herself to the world by the time the 2018 Winter Olympics rolled around in Pyeongchang, South Korea. At age 17, she became the youngest ever Gold medalist in the halfpipe while also becoming the first woman to land back-to-back 1080s in a single run.
Kim retained her halfpipe Gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing – logging her best score in just her first of three runs.
The California native could make history if she won a third Olympic title in the halfpipe.
Not only would she become the 12th American Olympian to win triple Golds across her career, she would join Shaun White as the only Olympian of any nationality to win three snowboarding Gold medals in any discipline.
