Snowboarder Chloe Kim, a rising star, will get serious airtime at the Winter Olympics

Spinning, flipping, flitting from one place to the next, Chloe Kim speaks in much the same way she rides the halfpipe, with breathless velocity and startling twists.

"Snowboarding brought me out of my shell," she says. "You know, if you meet someone for the first time, they're not going to bite you."

Sitting before a clutch of reporters, looking every bit the Southern California teenager in lipstick and blond highlights, Kim muses rapid-fire about fan letters from prison, less-than-stellar SAT scores and the relative merits of the Korean food her mother cooks.

"I need to go to Chipotle," she says. "It's like KFC, where you at?"

Grit and daring have made this 17-year-old