LIVIGNO, Italy — Eileen Gu’s mantra for the Milan Cortina Games is “Nothing to Prove.”
Still just 22 years old, you could argue Gu already has it all: International fame, model looks, a Stanford education, endorsements that make her one of the highest-paid female athletes in the world and two gold medals she won under immense pressure four years ago in Beijing after choosing to compete under the Chinese flag.
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She’s already banked a lifetime of accomplishment before most of her peers have gotten a full-time job.
“I have no real expectations,” she said. “I’m here because I want to be.”
On one hand, when you look at Gu’s image in totality, the one that has landed her on billboards and magazine covers and Olympic podiums, it seems like insincere claptrap. Ambition has defined everything about her young life, from her 1580 SAT score to walking runways at international fashion events. She really took time off from Stanford to train for the Olympics without any expectation of a medal haul like the one she took home from Beijing?
But at the same time, Gu’s legacy in the sport of freestyle skiing is already secure. Everything now is a bonus.
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And Monday, the lack of expectation she put on herself may have helped put a new entry on the career résumé that will shine as brightly as the silver medal she won in slopestyle. In a sport that is always progressing, always breaking new ground, always pushing athletes to their physical and mental limits, Gu and Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud put on a head-to-head show that might go down as the best women’s freeski competition of all time.
“That’s hands down the best slopestyle run I’ve ever done,” Gu said.
It just happened to be not quite as good as what Gremaud put up.
“The level was crazy today,” Gremaud said. “Definitely the craziest competition we had so far in women’s skiing.”
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Four years ago in this event, Gu and Gremaud were separated by a third of a point, with the Swiss skier coming out on top. This time, the tricks were bigger and the obstacles more demanding — and both managed to post scores even better than they did in Beijing.
For somebody you’d think wants to win everything, this was the day a silver medal never felt more golden.
“I was cheering for her because I knew the implications this contest has on women skiing,” Gu said. “We are literally watching women’s skiing evolve in real time. How special and wonderful is that? Did I want to land a second and third run? Yes. Did I have plans to do bigger and better [tricks]? Yes. But can I be at all disappointed or feel any kind of way except immensely proud? No, because the first run I landed was the run I came here to do.”
And what a monster run it was, putting down one clean trick after another before finishing with a 1080- and 1260-degree double corks, which are off-axis flips while rotating through the air. Gu said she had never done those consecutively in competition. The judges awarded her 86.58 points — more than what she would have needed to win gold four years ago.
It was an opening salvo that, against any other opponent, may well have clinched a gold medal right then and there.
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Suddenly, the stakes were raised.
“I definitely felt like if Eileen did it, I can also do it and I’ll try to do it better,” Gremaud said.
On her second try, she did, finishing with a pair of 1260 double corks to take the lead at 86.96.
It was all coming down to the third run. Gu had big plans — starting with a trick, ironically, called “disaster.” But a slight miscalculation in the speed and angle of approach to the first rail ended her run right away as her skis clipped the rail and she fell into the snow. Gu described her discomfort with that particular rail — she also tangled with it once in qualifying — as “writing with your left hand if you’re right-handed.”
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At that point, it was over. Gremaud skied casually down the mountain with a Swiss flag on her back before celebrating with the team, feeling like history had been made — and not just because she is now a repeat gold medalist.
“The girls pushed me,” she said. “I was hoping I [didn’t] have to go for a third run because I didn’t know if I had it in me. It was really intense that second run. I wasn’t happy for [Gu], but I was happy for myself that I didn’t have to send it again on the third run. That was a huge relief.”
Now, the focus shifts to see whether Gu can repeat what she did in Beijing, winning gold in big air and the halfpipe.
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Back then, Gu felt besieged not just by the pressure of performing in China but by the vitriol that accompanied her decision to compete for her mother’s home country and not the U.S. where she was born and raised.
Even as a highly intelligent 18-year-old, it wasn’t easy to be caught between the political cross-currents of two global powers. It is why, in fact, American freeskier Hunter Hess reached out to Gu this week when his comments about the complexity of representing America on the world stage at this moment became outrage fodder in conservative social media circles.
“He was saying, ‘I think you are the one person who would understand what it feels like to be just trying to ski and have the entire world coming at you,’” Gu said. “I have so much sympathy and empathy for him. I feel sad that he’s in this situation, and it seems like an unwinnable press war for him right now.”
Gu glided through those storms and has come out on the other side feeling free here at these Olympics. She insists there’s no pressure to collect more medals, but if what she showed Monday is any indication, a slopestyle silver isn’t the only hardware she’s going to add to the collection.
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“I’ve gone through things at 22 I don’t think any person should ever have to deal with be it from threats, vitriol, online hate, you name it, physical attacks, the list goes on,” she said. “But I get stronger, and that’s what’s so wonderful about being young. You adapt and learn and get better and better.
“There was a period of time I thought I’d never be better than how I was at 18 so overcoming that and showcasing my best skiing when it counted at the Olympics is such a special experience. If I can inspire one young girl to start skiing after seeing the level today, that’s my gold medal.”
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