Ahead of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Brandon Kim was one of the United States’ most promising short track skaters.
Then 20 years old, Kim had swept the 2021 U.S. Championships, winning his first overall national title, and he entered the 2022 U.S. Olympic Trials as the top-ranked American skater in the world at No. 29. He was the favorite to claim one of the two Olympic quota spots the U.S. men had been awarded following the World Cup season, which his results on the circuit helped earn. He hoped to make his first Olympic roster, and it seemed as though he was poised to do so.
Those hopes came to a screeching halt after a disastrous Trials, where, among other mishaps, Kim crashed out of two finals.
“I had a bad weekend with conditioning and equipment. I fell five times that weekend,” Kim said. “Everything was just going wrong for me, so it kind of sucked being the person to earn the spots but not being able to go because of all those falls.”
Over the last four years, Kim has let the disappointment he felt in 2022 fuel him. He again earned the overall national title at the 2023 U.S. Championships and found himself in the top 10 in the 500m on last year’s World Tour circuit (which was rebranded from the World Cup after the 2023-24 campaign).
Kim opened this season with more national titles in each distance (500m, 1000m, 1500m), battling his way to gold in three of the six finals contested. That weekend, he also snapped nearly a 13-year-old national record owned by three-time Olympian J.R. Celski. He finished the World Tour circuit ranked 10th in the men's 500m for the second-straight season, and he was one-fourth of a mixed relay squad that earned silver at the final World Tour stop in Dordrecht, Netherlands. Once again, just like before Beijing, he stands as the United States’ top-ranked man (14th overall).
This time, though, he’s finally headed to the Olympics.
The U.S. short track team did not hold an official Olympic Trials as is typical ahead of a Winter Games, so the Olympic team was built entirely based on performances on the World Tour circuit.
As a result, skaters were able to gauge whether or not they had qualified for the Games as the season progressed rather than waiting for one particular race at Trials. But that didn’t take away from the reprieve Kim felt once it became official.
“After the first two World Cups, we were pretty confident that I would have my spot, but we finalized it this last month,” Kim said. “I was relieved. ”
Unlike the other athletes on the national team, Kim typically doesn’t train at the Olympic Oval in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a full-time computer science student on a pre-med track at Stanford University, Kim usually spends most of the year in California, where he doesn’t have access to a rink.
“When I’m at school, I’m just a student. I’m not a student athlete. I’m lifting on my own, biking, running, training on my own off the ice,” Kim said. “For the past three seasons, I’ve just been flying out to the World Tour competitions the Wednesday before we race on Friday, and then I try to get everything figured out in those two days before I have to race.”
Keeping his fitness and endurance levels up helps, but it’s impossible to mimic the act of skating off the ice, he said. The closest he can get is by tying a turn belt, or a kind of resistance band, to a pole and using it to get into the leaning position that short track skaters take as they round the oval’s tight corners. For a sport which requires skaters to dash around a slippery sheet of ice at up to 30 miles per hour, that doesn’t really count as good practice.
Given the upcoming Winter Olympics, Kim decided to put his education on hold this year and temporarily move to Salt Lake City to solely focus on his training. Instead of heading to Utah in mid-July after Stanford’s spring quarter ended, as he usually does, he moved in May, making use of almost the full offseason for the first time in three years. Now, he’s right back to where he was before the 2022 Trials.
As one of the two most precisely-timed events at the Winter Olympics (luge is the other), the slightest change in speed, position, equipment, etc. can mean the difference between winning gold and finishing off the podium. For that reason, training in Utah has been game-changing for Kim.
There, in addition to simply being able to skate more, he receives more consistent feedback from his coaches, more resources for training and recovery, and more opportunities to test different kinds of equipment.
“I get to try a bunch of different things, see what works for me, see the things that I want to work on. It’s the little things,” Kim said. “Our sport is determined by thousandths of a second, so it’s just the little things that, if you can perfect them, it goes a long way.”
Being in Utah also provides Kim a cohort of other skaters to relate to and learn from. Kim is one of 10 men on the 2025-26 national squad, and while most of the other skaters specialize in one or two distances, they’re all competitive in every event. In each of the three races he won at nationals in September, Kim crossed the finish line just one- or two-tenths of a second ahead of the runner-up.
“It’s good to have people that push you. I’m more of a sprinter. I do all the distances, but I’m more of a 500m guy. There are other people on the team that do a little more long distance, so having them to help with my long distance training is very helpful,” Kim said. “I just try to take what I can from each of my teammates and try to utilize it.”
Over the last four years, Kim hasn’t made many big adjustments to the way he trains. The most influential difference, he said, has had more to do with his mindset.
“I was a lot younger [before Beijing]. I think, now, I’m just a little bit more chill. I don’t try to force as much. I just take what’s given to me, and then based on the situation, I figure it out,” Kim said. “Just having those four more years of experience, … making those small changes, can make a big difference.”
Without Olympic Trials, Kim and the seven other American short track skaters heading to Milan Cortina have over two months off from formal competition before the Games begin in February. That gives them plenty of time to improve as much as possible, and Kim plans to take advantage of every minute of that period.
“I just want to make sure I get some recovery, make sure I’m rested up, so when I’m training, I’m able to give 100%,” Kim said. “Right now, we’re in a pretty tough training block just because we have that break. We’re going hard, and as we approach race time, we’ll dial it back and taper to be in the best condition.”
Kim plans to compete in all three individual distances in Milan Cortina, with his first appearance happening Feb. 10 in the 1000m qualifying rounds.
There’s a lot on the line in February; not only is it Kim’s first shot at Olympic glory, but the United States hasn’t won an Olympic short track medal since John-Henry Krueger’s 1000m silver in 2018. The last time a U.S. man skated to the podium in Kim’s signature 500m was in 2006, when Apolo Anton Ohno took gold.
Even with all that in mind, however, Kim isn’t putting any pressure on himself. He temporarily put his education on hold to achieve this dream, and for now, he just wants to enjoy the ride “with [his] guys.”
“I’m excited just to see what it’s going to be like. I’m excited for the Opening Ceremony," Kim said. "I don’t really know what to expect, so I’m just excited to see what the experience is like, and I just want to prepare as best as possible.”