Make way for the red, white and oooh!
Members of Team USA were all business this week as they landed in Beijing, where they’ll “snow” no mercy at the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, beginning Friday (and airing on NBC and Peacock).
Before their game faces were on, their bulky athletic gear came off — to flaunt their gold-medal bods.
Chloe Kim, 21, snowboarding
This former teenage phenom has enjoyed a meteoric rise to celebrity after taking home Olympic gold in 2018 at age 17 – the youngest women’s champ in the sport’s history. The stunning LA native then earned more props from kids across the county when Mattel made a Barbie Doll in her honor. Kim turned 21 on April 23 and can now properly toast her anticipated Olympic success — with a glass of bubbly.
Nathan Chen, 22, figure skating
The first skater to nail five quadruple jumps in one competition, this Salt Lake City native has paired technical mastery with boy-band good looks. That killer combo has helped make him a shining star in the skating world. Chen has dominated the sport in recent years, ranking No. 1 in the world from 2018 to 2021. He lands in Beijing ranked No. 3 globally but fresh off a dominant performance earlier this month, winning a sixth straight US Figure Skating Championship in Nashville.
Lindsey Jacobellis, 36, snowboarding
The Roxbury, Conn. product spent her teen years honing her craft at popular Stratton Mountain in Vermont, and has become one of the most decorated athletes in snowboarding history. Her resume includes 10 X Games gold medals, six world championships and an Olympic silver. She ties an American women’s record this year by appearing in her fifth Winter Olympics, where she will compete in snowboard cross. Jacobellis boasts a figure for all seasons, looking radiant in bare midriff amid rocky desert outcrop for Women Fitness mag.
Shaun White, 35, snowboarding
Legend. White announced on Jan. 13 that the Beijing games will be his fifth and final Olympiad. His retirement comes after two decades of jaw-dropping dexterity in the halfpipe that made the flame-haired San Diego native an Olympic champ, the sport’s first global celebrity and a pop-culture icon. He won gold at the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Olympics, along with 13 X Games snowboarding gold medals dating back to 2002. Tony Hawk’s protege has also won two gold medals in X Games skateboarding. Now the oldest snowboarder in Olympic history, White has settled into his celebrity and adulthood after a tumultuous past that included charges of sexual harassment. He lives with girlfriend former “Vampire Diaries” star Nina Dobrev, who announced their relationship on Instagram in May 2020 by cutting the Flying Tomato’s famous ginger locks.
Mikaela Shiffrin, 26, skiing
Born to ski in Vail, Colo., Shiffrin is one of the most successful Alpine athletes in history. She captured her first Olympic gold at Sochi in 2014 at age 18, the youngest slalom champ in history. Shiffrin won slalom gold again in 2018 and has dominated the World Cup circuit with an astonishing 73 career victories. She enters the Olympics nearly two years to the day after her ski-enthusiast father Dr. Jeffrey Shiffrin died suddenly from an accidental head injury on Feb. 2, 2020.
Madison Chock, 29, and Evan Bates, 32, ice dancing
The glamorous pair has been a tandem on the ice since 2011 and a couple off the ice since 2017. Chock, born in Redondo Beach, Calif., and Bates, who hails from Ann Arbor, Mich., are eyeing their first waltz up the Olympic podium after competing together in the 2014 and 2018 games. The couple carries big expectations into Beijing after winning their third ice dancing title at the US Figure Skating Championships. For Bates, this is his fourth Olympiad, a record for an American figure skater. He competed with former partner Emily Samuelson in the 2010 winter games in Vancouver.
Aja Evans, 33, bobsledding
The self-proclaimed “bobsled bombshell” stands 5-foot-10 and has blazed a path from the South Side of Chicago to the top of American sports. She’s already tasted Olympic success once, winning a bronze in Sochi in 2014. Dad Fred is a legend in collegiate swimming, as the sport’s first black national champion, while brother Fred enjoyed an eight-year NFL career. Evans was hospitalized briefly last month and required 30 stitches after suffering facial lacerations during a training accident in Germany.
Zachary Donohue, 31, ice dancing
Zach and pairs partner Madison Hubbell are three-time US champions who hope to capture Olympic hardware for the first time this year after barely missing the podium with a fourth-place finish in the 2018 games in Pyeongchang. Beijing is the tandem’s last shot at international glory: the partners recently announced that they’re retiring their competitive partnership after the Olympics. Dashing Donohue, a Connecticut native, has a history of romancing some of skating’s most beautiful women. He and partner Hubbell were once a couple, he reportedly dated Spanish ice dancer Olivia Smart during the 2018 Olympics, and he has been linked since last year to Australian figure skater Chantelle Kerry.
