LIVIGNO, Italy – After a scare, Eileen Gu kept alive her quest for a third Olympic freestyle skiing medal in consecutive Games. She fell in her first run of the snowy women’s halfpipe qualifying on Feb. 19 before rallying to advance to the Feb. 21 finals.
But, per usual with her, that was only part of the evening’s story.
Afterward, the American-born Gu – who represents China as one of the most famous athletes in these Olympics – responded to questions about the criticism she receives in the United States.
That, recently, included Vice President JD Vance. In an interview with Fox News, Vance said, referring to Gu, he hoped someone who grew up in the U.S. would “want to compete with the United States.”
Gu didn’t take offense to Vance’s words, she said, and as for Vance wanting her to compete for the U.S., she replied playfully, “I’m flattered. Thanks, JD! That’s sweet.”
Continuing the theme, Gu replied in the affirmative when asked whether she feels “like a bit of a punching bag for a certain strand of American politics at the moment.’
“I do,” Gu said. “So many athletes compete for a different country. … People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they just hate China. So it’s not really about what they think it’s about.
“And also, because I win. Like if I wasn’t doing well, I think that they probably wouldn’t care as much, and that’s OK for me. People are entitled to their opinions.”
Asked about her safety, the 22-year-old Gu said she had been assaulted on Stanford’s University’s campus last year.
“Not by a Stanford student,” she said. “Like a person who came and physically attacked me in broad daylight. And then our dorm was robbed. … It was pretty serious, yeah.”
Gu was correct about other athletes competing for other countries, even in the event she’d just competed in on Feb. 19. Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin, who won the halfpipe qualifying with a 91.50 score, was born in Massachusetts.
Two of the four Team USA skiers in the event qualified for the finals, with Svea Irving finishing eighth (80.75) and Kate Gray (74.75) barely making it in 12th place after waiting out a final stretch of competitors alongside her family in attendance.
Though she finished fifth in this qualifying with a clutch second-run 86.50 while facing elimination, Gu will be considered one of the favorites to win another medal, which would give her six and duplicate her historic Beijing Olympics in 2022, when she medaled in the big air, slopestyle and halfpipe events.
“It’s a challenge being the only person in this field competing in another event, let alone two,” Gu said. “Which means I’m coming off two weeks of the highest adrenaline peaks and throughs of my life, pretty much, and everybody else is fresh. … I choose to compete in three events. This is my own bet on myself, so it’s not a complaint. It’s more just painting a picture of the realistic struggles that I’m going through that other people might not.
“Yes, I looked uncharacteristic in my first run. I also haven’t skied halfpipe in two months because I’ve been training slope.”