ZHANGJIAKOU, China — When some competitors barely cleared the top of the halfpipe on late-run tricks, Chinese star Eileen Gu continued to soar. Camera operators bent backward to track the teenager’s motion through the air as she spun off the wall of the halfpipe, climbing higher and higher just as she has for the last two weeks.
Gu reached a new level Friday, becoming the first freestyle skier to win three medals in the same Olympics. After gold and silver medals in slopestyle and big air, respectively, she dominated the women’s halfpipe final at Genting Snow Park, extending her undefeated halfpipe season with a second Olympic gold medal. Gu recorded the two highest scores of the competition, including a gold-medal-winning 95.25 on her second attempt, before taking a victory lap.
Canadians Cassie Sharp and Rachael Karker took silver and bronze, respectively. American Hanna Faulhaber finished sixth in her first Olympics while Brita Sigourney and Carly Margulies finished 10th and 11th on a windy and cold day.
Fans who had been limited to just one section of the limited capacity stands at Genting Snow Park spilled over to fill more than two-thirds of the viewing area Friday. Olympic volunteers who spent the last month working in the closed loop arrived en masse to catch a glimpse of freeskiing’s golden girl. A group of fans held signs that read in Chinese “Go Gu Ailing.”
Since winning freeski big air last week, the Chinese American, 18-year-old, skier-student-model has captured attention on both sides of the Pacific where people have struggled to untangle her from a complicated web of sports, identity and politics. While many try to pin her down on choosing U.S. or Chinese citizenship or being American or Chinese, Gu is happy to live as a multihyphenate.
“People, I think, are not used to other people not fitting into a box,” Gu said after Thursday’s qualifications. “I feel like I’m the kind of person that sometimes makes people uncomfortable because they don’t know what to do with me. … I think in that sense, my biggest message has been you don’t have to fit in a box, you can do it all.”
After she qualified in first place Thursday, Gu worked through the maze of TV stations and reporters at the bottom of the halfpipe, stopping at every station that asked for her time. As she leaned on the barrier separating reporters from athletes, gold lettering on the cuffs of her red jacket displayed a fitting motto for the teenage star.
“Keep moving.”
Since walking in the opening ceremony on Feb. 4, Gu didn’t have a single day off between training and competing in three events. After winning silver in slopestyle Monday, she went through an abbreviated media junket to fit in a shortened halfpipe training session. She ate lunch at the bottom of the slopestyle course after qualifying runs. It was her only time to eat, she said.
This year is the first Olympics with freeski big air, allowing Gu to attempt a historic triple-medal hunt. Since freeski entered the Olympics in 2014, the United States’ Devin Logan was the only woman to have competed in both halfpipe and slopestyle in the same Games. She finished 15th in halfpipe and 10th in slopestyle in Pyeongchang.
Logan said there are advantages to training both events as the tricks crossover, but the busy schedule catches up, especially during World Cup competitions when the events don’t always line up.
“It’s definitely trying to find the time to rest, get a quick bite to eat, get that energy back up,” said Logan, the 2014 slopestyle silver medalist who finished 13th in halfpipe qualifying Thursday. “But she’s young.”
Polished, charismatic and media savvy, it’s easy to forget that Gu has achieved star status before starting college. She was everywhere at the Games, appearing on bags used at gift shops, in video ads at train stations and on seemingly every other commercial during China’s CCTV Olympics coverage.
But where she made her biggest mark was on the podium, standing on three in less than two weeks.
