Eileen Gu, China’s highest profile athlete on the Beijing Olympics, scored a gold medal within the ladies’s huge air ski occasion following a spectacular remaining soar. It’s the primary of three medals she is competing for on the 2022 Winter Video games.
Gu, who is understood in China as Gu Ailing, has featured on posters and promotional movies for the Video games. She can also be signed to IMG Fashions, and has been the face of advertisements for Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.
She was in third place coming into her remaining run—assured at the least a bronze medal after two strong jumps. However then, Gu pulled off a 1620—4 and a half full rotations. It was the primary time she had landed that soar in competitors, and it was sufficient to place her in first place.
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The 18-year-old was born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese language mom. After a number of seasons of competing for the U.S. at main occasions, she introduced in 2019 that she would swap nationwide affiliations and compete for China in 2022. In China, she has earned the nickname “Snow Princess.”
Following her third run, Gu screamed with pleasure. “Oh my god! I’m not crying. I’m positively not crying,” she exclaimed. The skier fell to her knees when the rating was introduced and the group, who included Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach, gave her a standing ovation.
Chinese language social media lit up with help for Gu throughout and after her competitors—dominating six of the ten trending subjects on the Chinese language microblogging website Weibo. “Ahhhhh I’m going loopy! Princess is so good,” wrote one consumer.
“I believed the media turning her right into a god would give her an excessive amount of strain, however she withstood it!” wrote one other. “She is the delight of Chinese language women!” one other fan wrote.
Tess Ledeux of France took second place and Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland received bronze.
Gu will even compete within the ladies’s slopestyle and halfpipe occasions.
–With reporting by Aria Chen / Hong Kong.
