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Olympians, But Still Teenagers

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Notre Dame chapter.

The Olympic Winter Games are back and better than ever. Your four years of waiting have now finally come to an end. People all across the world come together to watch history be made and wish for the best for their country’s athletes. Although they may seem unreal, Olympic athletes are actually humans too. In fact, some of them are still just teenagers. Here are a few funny moments of the Olympic games so far where these super-humans proved they’re just like us.

Red Gerard

17-year-old Red Gerard from Colorado recently won the gold medal in Men’s Slopestyle Snowboarding. While a fantastic snowboarder, Red Gerard is still a 17-year-old. The day of his big event, Gerard overslept his alarm. Turns out, he had been binge-watching Netflix the night before his event. When his teammate dragged him out of bed, Gerard realized that he also lost his jacket, so he borrowed his friend’s jacket instead. Nonetheless, he still had an amazing score and won the gold medal. But don’t worry, the story isn’t done yet. NBC decided to air Gerard’s reaction to his win on television, which was probably not the best idea. You can clearly hear Gerard yelling “holy f*ck” on national television. So even though he may be one of the best athletes in the world, he is still just a normal teenager.

Chloe Kim

Also 17 years old, Chloe Kim is now the youngest woman to ever win an Olympic snowboarding medal. The California native participated in the snowboarding halfpipe event in her first Olympics. Four years ago, she actually qualified to go to the Olympics in Sochi, but was too young to do so. Kim was only 13 years old at the time, and the minimum age for the Olympics is 15. So obviously Chloe Kim is pretty good at snowboarding. Since she is just 17 years old, Chloe Kim, just like Red Gerard, is still just a teenager. Reading through her Twitter account, one can see that Kim is always hungry, just like us. After she qualified for her event’s finals, she tweeted “Could be down for some ice cream rn.” I mean who wouldn’t want ice cream after you qualify for the Olympic finals? Very understandable. In between runs in the finals, she tweeted, “Wish I finished my breakfast sandwich but my stubborn self decided not to and now I’m getting hangry.” Honestly, if Chloe Kim can win an Olympic gold medal while being slightly hangry, I can’t even imagine what I could be doing while not hangry. After her win, Kim tweeted that she was “stoked” about her gold medal. Don’t worry, the best halfpipe snowboarder in the world still uses teenage slang. Kim, in addition to her gold medal, also gained 100,000 Twitter followers. I would say that’s a pretty good day.

Though these two elite athletes may seem intimidating, they are still just like us. If two goofy 17-year-olds can win gold medals in the Olympics, imagine what you can do if you set your mind to it.

Images 1, 2, 3, 4

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