Chloe Kim's Winter Olympics star power shines bright, bum shoulder and all

• Snowboarder Chloe Kim is aiming for her third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe competition.
• Kim is competing with a recently torn labrum, which she says is feeling good but requires a brace and tape.
• Despite the injury, Kim plans to perform a new run she has never done before in competition.
• Fellow U.S. snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick is also competing with an injured shoulder.

LIVIGNO, Italy – As a highly anticipated news conference arrived at its scheduled time, four chairs were on stage for members of the U.S. women’s snowboarding halfpipe team. One chair remained empty.

Chloe Kim knows how to make an entrance.

Even without intending to do it.

“I got so lost coming here,” she explained apologetically to teammates, arriving just in time to join them in front of a room full of relieved media members at Livigno Snow Park. The reporters had questions.

About her shoulder injury. About her readiness, given the time spent sidelined. About politics back home, even. And, of course, about Kim's confidence in winning a third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe competition, which begins Feb. 11.

“The shoulder is feeling good,” Kim said. “I have a shoulder brace, and it's very securely taped. Which kind of sucks at the end of riding, because I have to rip all this tape off, and it's awful. But it's worth it because I can snowboard."

You can find plenty of stars on Team USA in the 2026 Winter Olympics. But Kim is one of the few superstars. She is a bona fide celebrity, with fashion prestige, a Hollywood film credit, more than a million Instagram followers and fame that stretches well beyond the high-flying flips and tricks she has performed better than anyone in her chosen event, going back about a decade.

Kim was only 13 when she debuted at the X Games. She was 17 when she won her first gold in Pyeongchang in 2018 before making halfpipe history by repeating four years later in Beijing.

Now 25, she’s aiming to win another despite being another American women’s Winter Olympics superstar suffering from an injury that cast doubt on her ability to compete in these Games.

About a month ago, Kim dislocated her left shoulder during a training run in Switzerland. Kim’s many fans held their breath about these Olympics until she posted soon after on Instagram that she’d “just torn her labrum” and intended to compete in Livigno.

Indeed, she is here. Not 100%, certainly, but trying to stay positive.

“In a funny way, I feel like it’s my made riding better maybe,” said Kim, who said she didn’t get back on her board until about two weeks ago. “I feel like I'm not moving around as much. I feel like I'm much more steady, because I literally can't move this arm as much as I normally would.”

In that, Kim isn’t alone on the U.S. women’s halfpipe team. Maddy Schaffrick, too, will compete in Livigno with an injured shoulder.

The two snowboarders bumped fists on the news conference stage about it, with Kim joking that: “If you put us together, we have two good shoulders.”

OK. But, seriously, how realistic is this?

How much does a shoulder ailment restrict an Olympic halfpipe routine?

“The first day, it was a matter of me like riding confidently and kind of faking it until I made it, if that makes sense,” Schaffrick said. “My attention, when it was in my shoulder – that instability or pain I was feeling or awareness of my brace restricting me – that really held me back. When I just dropped into the rest of my body and … my board and felt that confidence, it didn't hold me back.”

“Once we're in there and focusing on what we want to do,” Kim added, “the tricks we want to do, everything, the mind goes completely blank. I'm not thinking about my shoulder. I'm just thinking about what I'm trying to accomplish.”

It's early in these Games, but it hasn't been a great start at chilly Livigno Snow Park for Team USA. No medals. Only one instance (Ollie Martin) where any American was able to get close.

But, then, there's Chloe Kim. Maybe there’s hope after all. Maybe her talent just takes over again. Maybe Kim, hardly a favorite in her adverse circumstances, has more Olympic magic ahead.

“I'm really excited to do my run,” she offered up tantalizingly. “It's one I've never done before, and I think if I'm able to pull that off, regardless of where I place, I'll be really content with that.”

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at [email protected] and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social