Eileen Gu stood atop the purpose-built ramp, sitting in third place entering the final run of the Olympic women’s freestyle big air. The seconds felt like minutes as she embraced her coach and stood in position waiting for the green light. One of the first lean-forward moments of the Beijing Winter Olympics was afoot, the weight of two countries borne squarely on her 18-year-old shoulders. And then she dropped in.
The teenager poised to emerge as the biggest American breakout star of these Games – while competing under the Chinese flag – took flight on a cloudless Tuesday morning along Qunming Lake, soaring to the gold in her Olympic debut and staying on course for an unprecedented hat-trick of medals.
The San Francisco-born freestyle skier and budding supermodel, who rose to prominence as one of America’s most hyped action-sports prospects in years before switching affiliations to her mother’s homeland, put down the first 1620 of her career – the four-and-a-half-revolution manoeuvre she has never even attempted in training – to overtake a pair of boundary-pushing rivals eager to spoil her coronation.
“That was a trick I have never done before, had never attempted before,” Gu said after becoming the youngest ever athlete representing China to win a Winter Olympic gold. “Yes, I’ve thought about it a lot, but to put it down on my third run in the first Olympic freeski final in history means the world to me.”
She added: “Even if I didn’t land it, I felt it would send a message out to the world and hopefully encourage more girls to break their own boundaries. That was my biggest goal going into my last run. I reminded myself to have fun and enjoy the moment and that, no matter what, I was so grateful to even have this opportunity to even be here.”
Gu was already well on her way to becoming a household name even before these Olympics with more than 1.3 million followers on Weibo and a growing roster of sponsors including Cadillac, Tiffany’s, Visa and Victoria’s Secret.
After delivering on the deafening hype of the run-up to Beijing, the ride has only just started. Gu is also a warm favourite in the slopestyle and halfpipe, having scored World Cup wins in both disciplines this year.
Gu flashed her ability to perform under pressure during Monday’s qualifying, when she was in danger of missing the final after a ski popped off on her second run but confidently landed her final attempt.
She wasted no time on Tuesday, stomping a double-cork 1440 on her opening run for a score of 93.75 to move into first place. But any thoughts of a smooth coronation were quickly shoved aside by France’s Tess Ledeux, who followed with a double 1620 – the largest rotation ever seen in women’s freeski – to push Gu down into silver position.
On her second run Gu landed a double-cork 1080 but dropped into third, a quarter-point behind Switzerland’s Sarah Hoefflin but safely in medal position, setting the stage for something massive on her final run. She delivered in a big way, flying to glory off the ramp built on a former steel mill site in Beijing’s Shijingshan district.
Ledeux, who was left in tears after falling into second, took home the silver. Mathilde Gremaud won the bronze.
“I was guaranteed a podium spot when I dropped in, so I was thinking I was only 0.25 points behind Mathilde, and I was thinking, ‘Should I improve on my previous one and go for the silver or should I whip out this random trick I’d never done before and go for gold?’” said Gu, whose triumph represents China’s 14th gold medal in Winter Olympics history and only its second on snow. “In my head, I wanted to represent myself and this competitive style that I really take pride in and that desire to push myself and push the sport.”
Gu’s decision to compete for China raised eyebrows at the time but has only grown thornier over the past two and a half years amid global condemnation for the host country’s human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in far western Xinjiang – which the US state department has labelled a genocide – in addition to the persecution of Tibetans and the repression of Hong Kong’s freedoms.
Those geopolitical implications were only underscored when the US, Australia, Britain and Canada announced a diplomatic boycott of the event last month.
Gu has tried to walk a narrow line throughout the run-up of pleasing both sides. But it will only get trickier from here as her pursuit of a historic Olympic treble heats up. The questions over her citizenship status – which she deftly elided no fewer than a half-dozen times – will only grow in frequency and volume.
The pressure of competition was quickly replaced with a different burden as she made her way through the serpentine mixed zone afterward, alternating seamlessly between English and Mandarin Chinese while conducting interviews for television and print media.
“I honestly feel like I’ve managed it well,” Gu said. “I don’t think like I’ve absorbed much of the external pressure. I feel really grateful for all the support I’ve received. But also I feel like I compete for myself. And I’m the one who did the work. I’m the one who put in the hours. There were no cameras in the gym when I worked eight hours on fashion work and then went to the gym afterwards.
“There were no cameras when I was hiking up before the lifts closed at 4pm to get another hit in. There were no cameras when I was I was running a half-marathon every week over the entire summer. Those are the hours that I put in.”
