Chloe Kim deserves a better breakfast sandwich than this

Chloe Kim is relatable. Sure, she’s 17 and the best snowboarder alive and ridiculously telegenic, but she’s also like us, the Real People, because she openly craves the unhealthy food we shamefully stuff into our gross, non-Olympic bodies.

She tweeted about wanting ice cream in between qualifying runs. She stress-ate churros. She longed for a half-eaten breakfast sandwich before dropping consecutive 1080s on the way to a halfpipe gold medal. (See? Exactly like us, except the part where she’s best athlete in the world at her chosen sport.)

Those cravings explain the tableau of empty calories the TODAY show laid out for her interview Tuesday morning (around 11 p.m. in Korea):

OK, we’ve got some ice cream, check. Churros, looking good. And a pile of breakfas—WHAT IN THE NAME OF CHLOE KIM ARE THESE?

Look, a breakfast sandwich is INCREDIBLY easy to make. You need an egg or two, cooked whichever way you like, and you need bread — kaiser roll, potato bun, English muffin, bagel, simple toast, whatever — to hold it with. A breakfast meat is welcome, as is cheese. I like hot sauce with mine, and the addition of a hash brown is a greasy hack for antemeridian champions. But the simple truth is this: A breakfast sandwich can be many different things, from simple to complex, and still be a success. The bar for deliciousness is absurdly low.

These sandwiches do NOT clear it: White bread unevenly scorched, as if by a hurriedly procured Bunsen burner; some unnaturally yellow egg-like product; a thick center of ham (if we’re being generous, the salty bronze of common breakfast meats); and a single slice of unmelted orange cheese. UNMELTED?!? Come on! You toast the bread, put the cheese on the warm toast, then put the hot eggs on the cheese, thus ensuring it melts.

To be clear: I am not besmirching the wonders of Korean cuisine or the Korean breakfast sandwich. I am saying that these particular sandwiches aren’t up to the standard of ANY culture’s breakfast sandwich. And it didn’t have to be this way; there’s an Isaac Toast in PyeongChang that is making me crave a buttery, sweet, salty, cabbage-y brekkie sando from 7,000 miles away. I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT BREAKFAST SANDWICHES.

Kim was, at best, bemused by this sorry offering to the snowboarding goddess:

Not long before this, she ate a makeshift, but enticing ice cream churro sandwich made by junk-food visionary David Chang, and TODAY — with 12 hours between her gold medal run and this interview to prepare a plate of prop food — expected our Olympic queen to demean herself with these sad, sorry “sandwiches.” SHOW SOME RESPECT.