Chloe Kim made history as the youngest woman ever to win a gold medal insnowboarding in 2018.- She threw that hardware in the trash because she "hated life" after the win, she told TIME.
Chloe Kim "hated life" after winning her history-making Olympic gold medal.
The then-17-year-old became the youngest woman ever to win gold in snowboarding when she landed back-to-back 1080s to take the top prize on the halfpipe at the 2018
And even though she trained her whole life for that moment atop the podium, she had virtually no preparation for the avalanche of attention that came with the victory. The flood of fame would be overwhelming for anyone, but it was destabilizing for someone Kim's age.
"The minute I come home, I can't even go to my goddamn favorite place," Kim told TIME's Sean Gregory for a recent profile, recalling a moment in 2018 when fans swarmed her upon a visit to her hometown bakery. "It makes you angry. I just wanted a day where I was left alone. And it's impossible."
"I appreciate that everyone loves and supports me, but I just wish people could understand what I was going through up to that point," she continued. "Everyone was like, 'I just met her, and she's such a bitch.' I'm not a bitch. I just had the most exhausting two months of my life, and the minute I get home I'm getting hassled."
"I just want to get my fucking ham and cheese sandwich and go," she added.
What she was going through was not entirely uncommon for Olympians. Having accomplished what she'd long worked towards, Kim was left with a "post-Olympic depression," as Gregory described in his piece, and uncertainty about what came next.
Plus, she was grappling with it all under the brightest of lights, at a much younger age than the vast majority of Olympic gold medalists.
So she threw away the thing that symbolized this massive shift in her life; Kim literally tossed her Olympic gold medal in the trash.
Eventually, after a stint in college, several years living with her new normal, and therapy, the now-21-year-old learned to grapple with the change. Her medal found its way out of the garbage, and though she may not always love the fame that came along with the hardware, she's found a way to cope.
"I don't care anymore," Kim said. "I guess I would tell my younger self that even though things get hard and people are mean to you or whatever, it'll get better and you're going to realize that you have so much good happening in your life, that the bad isn't going to hurt you."
"It's just annoying," she added. "It's like an annoying mosquito in the background, just flying around."
In a few short weeks, Kim will debut three new tricks that are "an upgrade from everything I've done" in hopes of winning another gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Qualifications for the women's halfpipe are set to begin on February 9, with the final taking place February 11.