Snowboarding gold medalist Chloe Kim to take mental health break from sport

Right after a “draining 12 months,” Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Chloe Kim has announced that she is using a split from the sport to concentration on her mental wellbeing.

Kim is amongst the sport’s major stars, owning become the youngest at any time woman to get skateboarding gold at the 2018 Winter season Olympics when she was just 17 many years outdated. She then defended her title earlier this 12 months at the Online games in Beijing.

“(I) just want to variety of reset,” Kim told Cheddar News. “I really do not want to get ideal back into it after these types of a pleasurable, but draining yr, at the exact same time, understanding that it was an Olympic calendar year.”

In quite a few ways, it is the suitable time for the star to action away. She claimed that she will return to the activity in time to defend her gold medal at the upcoming Winter Games in Italy.

“I just want to love this minute, take it all in and then back again to it when I’m feeling ready, but as of now the strategy is most absolutely to go immediately after a 3rd medal,” Kim, who has been competing in snowboarding considering that she was just four several years old, informed Cheddar Information.

Like a amount of younger athletes, she has been open and easy about the psychological well being worries she has faced as a best competitor. The Prolonged Beach, California native also stepped away from the sport adhering to the 2018 Game titles to go to Princeton College and did not suffer for the conclusion in Beijing.

Tennis star Naomi Osaka and gymnastics star Simone Biles have also stepped absent from competitors in recent years because of psychological wellbeing difficulties. Michael Phelps, another Olympic winner, has been open about his problems with mental health in modern several years as nicely.

Kim, whose mom and dad ended up born in South Korea, has also persistently confronted racism as a general public figure — particularly in the aftermath of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic — and been outspoken about the toll it has taken on her as she represents the US.

The up coming Winter season Olympics are scheduled for February 2026 in Milan-Cortina.