The American-born freestyle skier represented China at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and will do so again in the Milan Cortana Games.
WASHINGTON — Three-time Olympic medalist Eileen Gu is back for the Milan Cortana Winter Games, and once again she is representing China instead of the United States — the country where she was born.
Gu became the youngest freestyle skiing champion ever at the 2022 Beijing Games, when she was 18 years old. She won gold in big air and halfpipe, and silver in slopestyle. She was also the first woman to land a forward double cork 1440.
She was born in San Francisco, but she represented China at the 2022 Winter Games and is doing so again at the 2026 Winter Games.
The reason why? Her mother’s heritage. Her father is American, and her mother is Chinese, having emigrated to the United States more than three decades ago. Gu embraces her multicultural upbringing. According her Olympic biography, she is fluent in both Mandarin and English.
“People sometimes don’t know what to do with other people when they’re not fitting in a box,” Gu said during the 2022 Olympics. “They say, ‘Is she Chinese? Is she American? Is she a model? Is she a student? Why is she trying to change the world when she’s only 18?’”
She learned to ski in the United States and trained with the American team for years. When it came to figuring out which uniform to wear for the Beijing Games, she said she thought about it and felt she would have a greater impact if she could bring action sports to a wider audience in a country with no history on snow.
“My biggest goal is for some girl to be sitting at home watching freeskiing for the first time and thinking, ‘Maybe that could be me some day,’” Gu said at the Beijing Games. “Maybe she sees someone who looks like her doing it and thinks, ‘Hey, I can do that, too.’”
Gu said that the country she skis for is an important thing, but not the only thing.
“I’ve never had any kind of hate, never had any kind of negativity from any of my friends, from anyone in the industry, or from anyone I know in person,” she said. “It’s just people who don’t know me. So, in that sense, I feel like the U.S. has made me who I am. China has made me who I am, and I’m infinitely grateful to both.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
