Tuesday Olympic Daily Digest: Chloe Kim Stars While Marcel Hirscher Finally Gets His Gold

Chloe Kim absorbs the spotlight while Marcel Hirscher finally gets his gold. Also, what you should watch on February 13th.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe Kim is the biggest star of the 2018 Olympics after she won gold for the United States in the women's halfpipe. To many, she became a star for sharing her thoughts during the process of becoming an Olympic champion in real time with the rest of the world.

She tweeted about finishing her breakfast sandwich in the middle of her second and third run. Before that, she also tweeted saying how nervous she was, a confession about churros and desire for ice cream. To many, it was funny. But it was cool insight into how the mind of an elite athlete deals with the pressure of being at the world's biggest stage in sports. Some people listen to music. Other people may tune into a guided meditation before competition. For a 17-year-old, social media was her preferred mechanism of dealing with down time.

According to data shared by Twitter, she had about 15,000 Twitter followers when she dropped into the halfpipe and then by the time she finished her run, she earned more than 100,000 new followers.

Here's a rundown of biggest stories from the past 24 hours:

• Austria's Marcel Hirscher is in the conversation as the greatest skier of all-time and most definitely his generation. He finally won his first Olympic gold medal in the combined event on Monday. The gold medal finds its place with his record six World Cup overall championship titles and his slalom silver medal from the 2014 Winter Games. Hirscher can add two more gold medals in the slalom and giant slalom.

• As expected, the Dutch continue dominating in speedskating. World champion Kjeld Nuis and compatriot Patrick Roest took gold and silver in the men's 1,500 meters, as Nuis became the first reigning world champion to win Olympic gold at the 1,500-meter distance. The Netherlands has matched its feat from Sochi with eight of 12 speed skating medals through the first four events—including all the golds. South Korea's Kim Min-seok rounded out the podium for bronze.

• Joycelyn Lamoureux-Davidson scored consecutive goals in just six seconds to set a record for the shortest span of time between goals at the Olympics as the United States defeated the Olympic Athletes from Russia 5–0. The previous record was held by Sweden's Carl Goran Oberg, who scored two goals in eight seconds at the 1960 Winter Games. This also marked the second shutout of the OAR in as many games. USA will face Canada to close out preliminary round of action on Thursday.

• The U.S. had a few shortcomings in speedskating. Maame Biney, the first black women to qualify for the U.S. Olympic speedskating team, didn't make it out of the quarterfinals in the 500-meter short track event. She will get a shot at redemption in the women's 1,500 meters on Saturday. Four-time Olympic medalist Shani Davis, Joey Mantia and Brian Hansen all missed the podium with Mantia placing the highest in eighth.

• Canada beat Switzerland 10–3 to win the mixed doubles curling gold medal.

Must Watch Events

Women's Alpine Skiing (Starts at 8:15 p.m. ET) 

Mikaela Shiffrin will make her PyeongChang debut two days after initially expected after the giant slalom race was postponed due to dangerous winds. Shiffrin is one of the biggest American stars of this year's Winter Games since becoming the youngest Olympic slalom champion at 18 years old in 2014. Since Sochi, she continued making history by becoming the first woman to win three slalom world titles in 78 years. She could become the first woman to win the slalom gold medal in consecutive Olympic games.

Men's Snowboard Halfpipe Final (Starts at 8:30 p.m. ET)

Shaun White will try to get his redemption in the men's halfpipe just four years after falling short in his quest of becoming snowboarding's first three-time Olympic gold medalist. White looked great in his first two jumps in qualifying.

Pairs Competition Figure Skating (Starts at 8 p.m. ET)

The United States will be represented in pairs competition by Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim when figure skating returns to prime time with the short program. 

Tweet of the Day

It's the perfect ending to her series of tweet.

Daily Reading and Videos

•​ Sports Illustrated's Michael Rosenberg on Chloe Kim endearing herself to the Olympic world with her affable personality and absurd snowboarding talent.

• There are few things better than a local television station unearthing footage of a star athlete talking about their dreams when they were younger. WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pa. found footage from 2003 of a 13-year-old Adam Rippon discussing the Olympics. 

• SI's Alex Prewitt explored the role that former NHL players Jim Paek and Richard Park have had in helping build the men's hockey team for the Olympic hosts.

• SI's Tim Layden looked at Ted Ligety's legacy in one more try at the podium in PyeongChang.

• Rosenberg also wrote about the bond that Cammi and Tony Granato have with the United States Hockey team.

Athlete To Root For

Any chance that you get to root and watch a legend, you should. Shaun White is an underdog at 31 years old but looked like his old self in qualifying. His two biggest challengers will be Ayumu Hirano of Japan and Australia's Scotty James so keep an eye out for them as well.