Silver medal winner China's Eileen Gu celebrates during the venue award ceremony for the women's slopestyle finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.Francisco Seco/The Associated Press
No one can accuse Eileen Gu of lacking a sense of drama.
The Chinese skier came from behind to win gold in the big air last week, and seemed like she might do it again Monday night in the women’s slopestyle event.
After making it through a “scary” qualifier, Gu was looking shaky in her first two runs, with a top score of only 69.90, well out of medal contention. But she delivered, once again, when it counts: putting down a massive final run for a score of 86.23.
It’s a testament to the quality of the field that this was not enough to earn Gu her second gold medal: she had to settle for silver, behind Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud. Estonian Kelly Sildaru took bronze, while Canada’s Olivia Asselin withdrew after a rough first run in which she scored only 16.83.
Gremaud won silver in Pyeongchang 2018, but world champion Gu was definitely the favourite ahead of Tuesday’s match, raising questions about whether her decision to compete in three events – big air, slopestyle and the halfpipe – has stretched the 18-year-old too thin.
Big air a big part of any bright future the Olympics may have
She received huge support from the home crowd who had braved the brutal temperatures to cheer her on in Zhangjiakou, the winter resort 150 kilometres from Beijing where some alpine competitions are being held.
A blizzard over the weekend caused several events up on the mountain to be rescheduled, and the mercury was hovering around -19 degrees Celsius on Tuesday morning (Monday night, Eastern Time) as the slopestyle event got under way.
Born and raised in the U.S., Gu chose to compete for China in 2019, a decision that has earned her plaudits in the latter country, and attacks in the former. She is among the top earning athletes at these Games, with endorsements worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Already the face of the Beijing Olympics before her first gold medal, Gu’s victory turned her into a superstar in China, with even her mother and grandmother becoming minor celebrities.
Gu-mania has reached such a level that some commentators have begun to warn about putting too much onus on a teenager who may yet – if push comes to shove – decide she is more American than Chinese. Gu does not appear to have renounced her U.S. citizenship, and whether she can continue to represent China without doing so at some point remains unclear.
“We cannot be certain about the decision she may make about her nationality and how she will manifest her national identity as she matures,” Hu Xijin, an influential commentator and former editor of the state-run Global Times, wrote this week.
Pointing to Gu’s oft repeated contention that “I am American when I am in America and Chinese when I am in China,” Hu said that “the real world may not allow her to do as she wishes.”
“The deterioration in Sino-American relations has turned this road into a dead end,” he wrote. “Legal issues may also be insurmountable. Gu Ailing will very likely face a difficult choice.”
Hu said that “China’s national honour and credibility cannot be put at stake,” urging a dampening of Gu-mania.
But with another medal under her belt, and eyes on gold in the halfpipe later this week, that might be easier said than done. Following her performance Tuesday morning, Gu accounted for six of the top 10 trending topics on Chinese social platform Weibo.