China’s freestyle skiing superstar Eileen Gu amazed crowds once again in Tuesday’s slopestyle final, taking home the silver medal after nailing her last run with a grand score of 86.23. She was only 0.33 of a point behind gold medal winner Mathilde Gremaud, of Austria. Gu made sure she kept the crowd on the edge of their seats after two low-scoring first runs, including a fall, left her out of the top three. Her final run was her last chance to impress judges and be among the medals – and she nailed it. Kelly Sildaru, from Estonia, who was the favourite after finishing first in the qualification round, took home bronze. It was a tough day on the course with not a single rider landing three perfect runs – a testament to how unpredictable this competition can be. In an interview with CCTV after her race Gu said: “It’s been really fun, I’ve been enjoying it this whole time. It wasn’t great when I fell in the middle of the first jump, but in the end I learned from it and made a breakthrough. During the third jump, I knew it was my last shot, and I had to give it my all.” Eileen Gu wins SILVER. 🥈 The 18-year-old takes the silver medal in women's freeski slopestyle to capture her second medal of the 2022 #WinterOlympics . pic.twitter.com/i6RGp96LWn — NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 15, 2022 Gu, who won gold in the big air event last week, scored 69.90 on her first run and followed it up with a 16.98. Fan favourite Gu immediately became the top trending topic on Chinese social media site Weibo following her second medal of the Games and first silver. Millions of users celebrated her success. Hashtags such as “#GuAilingWinsSilver”, “EileenGuIsTheStrongest” and “#GuAilingScores86.23inFinalJump” were among those gaining anywhere from one to 9 million posts. One user commented: “Gu Ailing is too strong, looking forward to winning the third medal, come on!” Gu will now compete in the freeski half-pipe qualification event on Thursday. The final will be on Friday. Half-pipe is Gu’s best event having generated the most medals and podium finishes in her career so far. If a silver medal in slopestyle and a gold in big air are anything to go by, fans can look forward to another amazing display of skills from the Beijing Games poster girl. With Gu’s silver medal in the bag and a gold from Su Yiming on the same day in the snowboarding big air final, China raised their medal tally to 12, six of which are gold. At 2018 Pyeongchang, China only took home one gold and nine medals in total. This is the strongest performance from Team China at a Winter Games, beating the 11 medals in Vancouver 2010 – five of which were gold. With five days of competition to go, including the men’s short-track speedskating relay on Friday, where China are among the hot favourites, there is hope for more gold.