Eight years ago, a young Bea Kim watched on with her family in PyeongChang as phenom snowboarder Chloe Kim (no relation) soared more than a dozen feet above the halfpipe, flipping her way to her first Olympic gold medal. In an instant, Bea caught an up-close glimpse of her own future as she witnessed a fellow Korean-American from her home mountain of Mammoth skyrocket to global success.
“That, I would say, was a pivotal moment in, like, ‘Okay, I could see this more now as a career,’” Bea remembers.
By then, Bea already had been snowboarding for most of her childhood, something she discovered her passion for on weekend trips to the mountain with her parents and younger brother. It wasn’t until she entered a spur-of-the-moment competition around the age of 9 and unexpectedly landed on the podium that she realized the potential for snowboarding to become more than a hobby. That prompted her to join the Mammoth Mountain Snowboard Team, and seeing Chloe’s meteoric rise shortly after was the final puzzle piece that fell into place.
Now, at age 19, Bea is on the verge of her own Olympic debut, earning a spot on a U.S. Ski and Snowboard team that features some of her earliest inspirations like Chloe and Maddie Mastro.
“I grew up watching them, and now I like to call them my friends,” Bea said. “It's been so nice to have them as role models and mentors in this crazy journey.”
Chloe, who just was 17 when she stormed onto the Olympic scene and won gold in 2018, has taken on a leadership role for Bea.
“We live pretty close to each other in LA and it's been fun just getting to spend time with her and kind of helping her throughout this entire process,” Chloe said. “I think it's cool to see, it's cool to help out the next generation.”
Bea now will receive more of that first-hand guidance as she prepares for one of the defining moments of her career: taking to the halfpipe at the Milan Cortina Games. But while the support around her has helped shape her rise, Bea has learned to rely just as much on her own mental and physical confidence – something that has developed over years of intense training and learning how to build trust in herself.
Manifesting her Olympic vision
Dating back to her early days competing, it took some time and effort for Bea to hone in on her style.
“I was never the person who people were like, ‘Oh, she's so naturally good at snowboarding' and this or that,” Bea said. “I'm not a very coordinated person. So it definitely took some practice to kind of get myself more comfortable on my board and like how I looked, like style-wise, in the air, and all this type of stuff. It just didn't come naturally to me.”
The fine-tuning paid off when, one year after that formative moment in PyeongChang, Bea won the 2019 Junior National Championship and cemented herself as one of the faces of the future. That was followed by a steady rise through the junior ranks and consistent results that put her on the U.S. team’s radar.
Her seamless transition to the senior circuit accelerated that rise. During her World Cup debut season in 2023-24, she recorded four 4th-place finishes and even landed on her first podium at the Laax Open, claiming 2nd place by way of a demanding run that featured switch riding and a high level of precise tricks. By the end of her rookie season, she was ranked 3rd in the World Cup standings.
Fast forward to today, and Bea’s approach to competition has matured alongside her riding. She maximizes her training whenever she's training on snow, but also allows herself time to rest and completely detach from the sport without feeling guilty.
That was a feeling she was forced to confront head-on when shoulder surgery sidelined her for much of what would have been her sophomore season. It took a lot of physical therapy and many gym workouts before Bea was ready to return to the halfpipe, and, given the ever-present fear of re-injury, it required just as much mental fortitude as it did physical strength.
But those months of repetition and strengthening her shoulder muscles again were critical in being emotionally ready to step back into a high level of competition.
“That gives a reassurance of like, okay, you've trained in the gym, and your body is strong enough to take slams and to be able to weather the storm,” she explained. “So you can trust that your muscle memory is going to come back and you're going to have your tricks and be able to snowboard, and that really helps the mental side of it.”
It didn’t take long for Bea to return to top form. In her first World Cup competition in over a year, she secured a podium finish at Copper Mountain on Dec. 19, placing 3rd behind some of the top Olympic medal contenders in Gaon Choi (KOR) and Sena Tomita (JPN).
Her highest-scoring run opened with a switch backside 900 and was followed by a string of multiple 540s and 720s in both directions, showcasing the precise grabs and clean execution that have come to define her technique.
“Honestly, I don't go as big as the other girls, and I know that, but I think I have some pretty technical tricks — and hopefully smooth,” she said.
At the Laax Open in January, her final outing before the Olympics, Bea finished 15th overall and didn’t advance past the qualifying round. At that point, her spot on the Olympic squad was all but secured, but the result left plenty to be desired — especially for an athlete who admittedly places a lot of pressure on herself to execute.
Short-term memory is important when it comes to being resilient and overcoming disappointing results, and Bea has learned how to turn her focus inward in those moments of struggle. She now allows herself to ride the wave of emotions, then detaches from the result so she can move on from it. After her finish in Laax, she put those principles in action as she reflected on her performance.
“Sometimes things just don't work, and going back to the root of that and seeing what I can change and what I can do differently and how I can adapt for the next competition takes off some stress, because stress always has a root, and the root is most of the time for me being unprepared,” she said.
Life beyond the board
After the Milan Cortina Olympics, Bea will turn her attention to a new challenge: college. She's set to attend Columbia University in the fall and plans to study climate and sustainability, an issue close to her heart.
Bea already has made waves with her climate activism, having campaigned for awareness and policy change at the United Nations (conveniently located just a subway ride away from Columbia) and even being awarded the distinction of Protect Our Winters Athlete Alliance Member of the Year 2024.
“Snowboarding is a very individual sport, and everything I've done for the past 10 years has pretty much been for my success in snowboarding in my own career,” she said. “To be able to do something that will have a broader kind of net and bandwidth, in a way, I think would be really special.”
Balancing school, activism, and snowboarding is going to be uncharted territory for Bea, so for now, she is content to go with the flow and embrace the uncertainty.
“I think my big-picture goals are to just be loving life to the fullest, and snowboarding, doing school. Maybe it's a new career,” she said. “Just exploring all of my options and doing what makes me happy.”
One thing that brings Bea joy and helps in hitting the emotional reset button: a consistent self-care routine, which offers some reprieve from the stresses of high-intensity competition and serves as a grounding technique for her.
Bea wants to retain as much of that usual routine as possible when she makes the transition to the Olympic Village. She plans to bring her favorite pillowcase and use her go-to products before races. A thorough regimen of moisturizers, chapstick, and hydration is key — “because everywhere I am in the mountains is so, so dry” — while a light amount of skin tint and lip liner gives an extra boost when it’s time for competition.
“Feel good, look good, ride good,” Bea said with a smile.
Bea's philosophy of living in the moment extends to the upcoming Milan Cortina Olympics. Although she's set high standards for herself, she makes sure to emphasize the importance of staying present while also managing that pressure to perform when she gets to Livigno — a piece of advice passed down from Chloe herself.
“She told me to just live, try to enjoy it,” Bea said. “When you're there, obviously you're trying to be your best and perform really well, and you're hyper-focused, but really take a moment to kind of lift up your goggles and look around and smell the flowers, in a way, because you don't want to look back on it in a few years and be like, ‘Wow, I really should have just enjoyed that a bit more when I was actually there.’”
Just like eight years ago in PyeongChang, Bea once again will find herself at the same Olympic halfpipe as Chloe when the competition kicks off in Italy on Feb. 11. This time, though — shaped by years of hustle, determination, and perseverance — she'll be there not as a spectator, but alongside her friend as a competitor.