Chloe Kim became the youngest woman to win an Olympic gold medal insnowboarding in 2018.- She's scheduled to compete again Tuesday, after taking a two-year break from the sport.
Despite becoming the youngest female snowboarder to win an Olympic gold medal, Chloe Kim said she "hated" snowboarding for the first time in her life after the "overwhelming" response to her 2018 victory.
In a recent interview with Savannah Guthrie for TODAY, Kim, now 21, reflected on what it was like to become world-famous at age 17.
At the Olympics, Kim said she felt like she had to be "always on, always excited." That excitement was genuine at first, but eventually, Kim said she felt it was expected of her.
"My cheeks were hurting so bad from fake smiling," she told Guthrie.
When Kim returned home, the flood of fame continued. She couldn't even get a ham and cheese sandwich at her favorite bakery without getting swarmed by fans, Kim told Sean Gregory in a separate interview for TIME.
"I was not expecting that kind of response," Kim told Guthrie. "I got really bad anxiety, and I was like, OK, maybe I can't do that again, because I just don't know if I can handle it."
Kim decided to take a break from snowboarding and enrolled at Princeton University. Although she said she was "mobbed" with requests for photos and autographs the first day on campus, the excitement eventually blew over and she was able to reset.
After almost two years away from the half pipe, Kim is returning with three new tricks in her repertoire this Olympics. She's scheduled to compete in the qualifying round Tuesday at 8:30pm ET.
"I just told myself that if I missed it while I was at school, I would go back," she told TODAY.
Kim said her time at school made her more open to therapy
The young snowboarder's time at Princeton was cut short due to the pandemic, but she said her semester-plus on campus helped her realize that it was OK to "fall apart" in the face of finals and other challenges.
Speaking to Gregory for TIME, she said that experience convinced her to start seeing a therapist after campus shut down in March 2020.
"Just being able to let those things out that you just tuck in your little secret part of your heart helps a lot," Kim told the magazine. "I feel much more at peace now."
Seeing Simone Biles withdraw from the Tokyo Olympics also inspired Kim to prioritize her physical and mental safety, she said.
Both athletes are known for their gravity-defying tricks — moves that could end their careers or worse if not executed correctly. In 2018, Kim was the first woman to land back to back 1080s, or three rotations mid-air.
"Having that comfort knowing that, 'Hey, I'm doing something really dangerous, or I'm doing something that is hard on my body, if I mentally can't do it, then I shouldn't,'" Kim told TIME, speaking about Biles' decision to withdraw from the 2020 Olympics. "It's in my best interest."