YouTube capture. Provided by Yonhap News.
With Choi Ga-on (Sehwa Girls’ High School) having won the first Winter Olympic gold medal in the history of Korean skiing, an old broadcast in which she appeared as a ‘snowboard’ prodigy has been spotlighted again.
Born in 2008, Choi Ga-on scored 90.25 points in the women’s snowboard halfpipe final held at Livigno Snowpark in Italy on the 13th, taking the gold medal. After she fell in succession in her first and second runs and was even forced to consider withdrawing due to the risk of injury, she did not give up, completed a flawless third run, and pulled off a last-minute comeback.
Screengrab from ‘There Are Such Things in the World’.
Screengrab from ‘There Are Such Things in the World’.
The protagonist of the ‘great comeback drama’, Choi Ga-on appeared in 2017 on SBS’s ‘Caught on the Spot: There Are Such Things in the World’ as a member of a ‘snowboard family’. At the time, at nine years old, she drew viewers’ attention as she enjoyed snowboarding with her parents and siblings.
The broadcast showed the entire family, including the 11-year-old and 10-year-old siblings and even the 33-month-old youngest, cruising the snowy slopes. In particular, Choi Ga-on was introduced with on-screen captions reading “perfect form”, “a tomboy boarder who enjoys speed”, and “specialty: rapid boarding, speed and riding”.
Immediately after the gold medal was confirmed, internet users revisited the YouTube channel where the video had been uploaded and left congratulatory messages. Comments such as “Here on a pilgrimage” continued to appear, along with messages like “This kid will win a gold medal in nine years” and “Congratulations on the Olympic gold medal”.
Choi Ga-on. Provided by Yonhap News.
Meanwhile, Choi Ga-on has stood out on the world stage since her early teens. She set the youngest-winner record at the X Games in the United States in 2023 at 14 years and 3 months, and she claimed her first World Cup title that December. In January 2024, a back injury forced her into more than a year of rehabilitation, but she successfully returned with support from her family and coach.
