Winter Games: Eileen Gu, the freestyle skiing Vogue cover girl chasing Olympic history in Beijing
- Gu is a heavy favourite to claim gold on the half-pipe – where she is unbeaten this season – and is a threat in slopestyle and Big Air
- Gu said she is hoping to use her platform to change people’s lives and the sport
Eileen Gu will be eyeing history of a different kind when she arrives in Beijing for the Winter Games next month.
The 18-year-old California-born star – who is just as comfortable posing for Vogue as she is creating a flexible relationship with the laws of gravity – will attempt to medal in all three disciplines: half-pipe, slopestyle and Big Air. And she’ll do it while competing for China, where her mother Yan emigrated from in her 20s.
It’s a decision Gu made in part to help grow the sport in a country that’s hardly a super power in the Winter Olympics.
“It’s awesome to be able to win a gold medal, there’s very few things in that moment that would feel greater,” Gu said. “But in the long run, it’s what you can do with the sport and what you can do with that platform.”
Don’t get her wrong. Gu wants to win. And if she can do it by playing a role in redefining what’s possible for a country of 1.4 billion, all the better.
“I [want to] be able to have those medals and to be able to feel like I changed someone’s life or changed the sport or introduced the sport to a country where it wasn’t before,” she said.
Gu is a heavy favourite to claim gold on the half-pipe – where she is unbeaten this season – and is a threat in slopestyle and Big Air, which will be making its Olympic debut in freestyle skiing after being limited to snowboarding in Korea.