By Lisa Richwine
LIVIGNO, Italy, Feb 9 – American snowboarder Chloe Kim said her injured shoulder was “feeling good” as she prepares to attempt a brand-new halfpipe run at the Milano Cortina Olympics to claim a third straight gold medal.
The 25-year-old tore her labrum, a type of cartilage found in the shoulder joint, a month ago during a training run and had to stay off her snowboard for two weeks.
“The shoulder’s feeling good,” Kim told a news conference in the Alpine town of Livigno on Monday.
Kim said she was wearing a shoulder brace kept in place with heavy tape, “which kinda sucks” because she has to rip it off after riding.
Her halfpipe teammate, Maddie Schaffrick, has the same injury and a matching brace.
“She did her right shoulder, and I did my left, so if you put us together, we have two good shoulders and two bad ones,” Kim said with a smile.
The halfpipe features riders sliding across a 22-foot-tall, U-shaped ramp and performing acrobatic tricks in the air. Kim took halfpipe gold in PyeongChang in 2018 and at Beijing 2022.
Kim said she was feeling confident again.
“I feel really good about how I’m feeling physically and mentally,” she said. “I’m really excited to do my run. It’s one I’ve never done before, and I think if I’m able to pull that off, regardless of where I place, I’ll be really content with that.”
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine , editing by Ed Osmond)
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