Eileen Gu

Eileen Gu (born September 3, 2003, San Francisco, California, U.S.) is a Chinese American freestyle skier who won a trio of medals, including two golds, at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. Only 18 years old at the time, she became the youngest Olympic champion in freestyle skiing and the first competitor in her sport to capture three medals in one Winter Games. Her decision, made in 2019, to represent the People’s Republic of China team in international competition led some American commentators to argue that she should have skied for the United States, where she was born and raised. Gu maintained that she wanted to be a role model for Chinese women and girls and to promote their participation in winter sports. Indeed, during and after the Beijing Games, she became a popular figure in China and gained wide international exposure by appearing in advertisements and working as a fashion model. She became the first woman competing for China to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an event on snow. Gu again competed for China at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, where she won a gold medal in the half-pipe and a silver medal in both slopestyle and Big Air.

Childhood and early career

Eileen Gu (rendered as Gu Ailing in Chinese) was born in San Francisco, California. Her father was American, and her mother, Yan Gu, emigrated from China to the United States in the early 1990s to pursue a secondary education and later became a venture capitalist and private investor. Eileen Gu was raised by her mother and grandmother and first hit the ski slopes when she was just three years old. She typically skied on the weekends, near Lake Tahoe, where her mother worked part-time as a ski instructor. Gu also ran cross-country and studied classical piano as a kid, but, when she was a teenager, she decided to focus exclusively on skiing. Growing up, she learned Mandarin along with English, and she spent most summers in China visiting family.

Gu began her skiing career by focusing on slopestyle. She worked her way up through the junior level and at age 13 began skiing at the senior level. After becoming comfortable with performing acrobatic jumps, Gu began participating in half-pipe events. She began competing internationally in the 2017–18 season and quickly made a mark, usually finishing in the top 10 in the slopestyle and half-pipe competitions she attended. Gu stood out for being taller (she is 5 feet 9 inches [1.75 meters] tall) and more lithe than many freestyle skiers and for excelling in both slopestyle and half-pipe; most top skiers choose one to be their specialty. In early 2019 she won the FIS (Fédération International de Ski) World Cup in slopestyle at Seiser Alm, Italy.

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Competing for China

In June 2019 Gu, age 15 at the time, announced that going forward she would no longer be competing for the United States and instead would represent China in international competitions. In an Instagram post describing her motivations she wrote:

This was an incredibly tough decision for me to make.…The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love. Through skiing, I hope to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations. If I can help to inspire one young girl to break a boundary, my wishes will have come true.

Over the next several years, Gu established herself as perhaps the best young female freestyle skier. In late 2019 she finished in first place in slopestyle and half-pipe at the Australian New Zealand Cup at Cardrona, New Zealand. She followed that showing with gold medals in half-pipe and Big Air and a silver medal in slopestyle, events held at Leysin, Switzerland, as part of the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games. She then won gold medals in slopestyle and half-pipe at the World Cup in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Gu continued her winning streak in 2021. At her first X Games, in Aspen, Colorado, she won gold medals in slopestyle and superpipe (a larger version of the half-pipe) and a bronze medal in Big Air. She was the first woman to win three medals in her debut at the X Games. She was also the first athlete competing for China to win a gold medal at the X Games. Shortly afterward Gu won in slopestyle and half-pipe at the FIS World Ski Championships at Aspen. Also in Colorado she won a gold medal in Big Air at the World Cup at Steamboat and a gold medal in the half-pipe at the World Cup at Copper Mountain. In the former competition, Gu was well ahead in her event after the first two runs when she used her third and final run to land a double cork 1440 (a complex move involving 2 simultaneous off-axis rotations and 4 spins), becoming the first woman to do so. Additional gold medal wins in half-pipe at the World Cups at Calgary and at Mammoth Mountain, California, set her up for her debut at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

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2022 Winter Olympics and further international success

In the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics, Gu’s decision to represent China—little remarked upon outside skiing circles when she announced it in June 2019—became a hotly debated media topic, inflamed by growing geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. In particular, conservative American commentators sharply criticized Gu; a Fox News host claimed that it was “ungrateful” for Gu to “betray the country that not just raised her but turned her into a world-class skier.” That provoked a furious response from the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, which called the attack “embarrassing” and “an excuse to criticise China.” For her part, Gu tried to stay above the fray, telling ESPN in 2021, “When I’m in the U.S., I’m American, but when I’m in China, I’m Chinese,” and expressing a desire to focus the conversation on her sport and be a role model for China’s female athletes. (In addition, commentators speculated about her citizenship status. Ordinarily, IOC rules require an athlete to be a citizen of the country they represent, but there is no indication that Gu has renounced her American citizenship. Moreover, Chinese law prohibits dual citizenship.)

On the slopes, Gu had a historic performance. In the final run of the Big Air event, she landed a double cork 1620 (2 rotations and 4.5 spins). It was the first time she had successfully completed the trick in competition, and she won the gold medal. She also won the gold medal in the half-pipe. After her first two runs in slopestyle, Gu was in eighth place. Her third run included two 900s (2.5 spins) and a double cork 1080 (3 spins and 2 off-axis rotations), and her score catapulted her into a second place finish. With those wins Gu became the first freestyle athlete to win three medals in one Olympic Games.

In the fall of 2022 Gu started her undergraduate education at Stanford University, having deferred her admission to prepare for the Olympics. She nevertheless continued to train while being a full-time student and made her return to competition at the World Cup in Calgary in January 2023, where she won a gold medal in half-pipe. She continued to dominate the half-pipe in the 2023–24 season, winning World Cup gold medals at Secret Garden, China; Copper Mountain; and Calgary. She won a silver medal in slopestyle at the World Cup in Laax, Switzerland. In addition, in January 2024 Gu participated at the X Games for the first time in three years and persevered through a hip injury to win the superpipe event, held in Aspen.

Lead-up to the 2026 Winter Olympics

Gu accumulated more gold medals in the first four World Cup events of the 2024–25 season, including three in half-pipe and one in slopestyle. During that time she also kept up her academic career, studying for the fall 2024 term at the University of Oxford, in England. In January 2025 she withdrew from the X Games in Aspen after sustaining an injury in a fall. She returned to the slopes in the summer, only to have another injury in August while training in New Zealand. In a social media post announcing the “terrible accident,” Gu implied that a fan might have been the culprit, writing, “I have to concentrate fully during training, especially when I am preparing to start, as it’s very dangerous to be interrupted. I also have to focus on picturing and imagining the moves while on the cable car.…So please don’t record or take photos while I’m training.” In November she entered a World Cup slopestyle event in Stubai, Austria, but finished in 29th place. Gu returned to form shortly thereafter, winning a World Cup half-pipe event in December and a slopestyle contest in January 2026.

Gu’s first event at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games was slopestyle. She finished second after falling off a rail in her third run. Gu had not competed in her next event, Big Air, since the Beijing Games in 2022. Nevertheless, she secured the silver medal after a strong third run. Gu later won a gold medal in the half-pipe.

Public profile and business ventures

Gu has a large social media following, particularly in China, which has helped bring attention to the sport of freestyle skiing. In addition, she has maintained an active modeling career alongside her athletic one. Represented by IMG Models, she has appeared in numerous fashion shows and on magazine covers and attended several Met Galas. Gu also regularly appears in advertising campaigns for both Chinese companies and international brands such as Louis Vuitton, Victoria’s Secret, and Tiffany & Co. In 2022 Time magazine included her on its list of the 100 most influential people of the year, and in 2023 Forbes named her the second highest paid female athlete of the year.