EILEEN GU FEELS RENEWED SENSE OF INFATUATION WITH SKIING AHEAD OF 2026 WINTER OLYMPICS
The 22-year-old who represents China also said about the upcoming Games: 'I am here to have the most fun and be fully present in this experience'
Eileen Gu said on Tuesday she was entering her second Winter Olympics with new-found love and a different approach to her sport after feeling stuck in recent years.
Gu acknowledged that the last year had been marred by injuries, limited training time and the demands of full-time study, leaving her to "live contest to contest".
"Now I feel this renewed sense of infatuation with skiing itself, with competing for the sake of sportsmanship and Olympic values," she shared on social media.
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"No matter what results will follow, I am here to have the most fun and be fully present in this experience," she added.
The 22-year-old Gu, who balances her professional training with studies at Stanford as well as a high-profile modelling and sponsorship portfolio, said the change in mindset started after the Secret Garden World Cup, held in Zhangjiakou, China in December.
Gu kept her perfect record at the Genting Resort Secret Garden intact, battling challenging conditions and some brief self-doubt to claim gold in the first Halfpipe World Cup of the 2025-26 season.
The double Olympic champion became the first athlete to win three freestyle skiing medals at a single Games in Beijing in 2022, with gold in big air and halfpipe, and silver in slopestyle.
Born in San Francisco to an American father and Chinese mother, the skier represented the US early in her career before deciding, in 2019, to compete for China, ahead of her Olympic debut in 2022 at the Beijing Games.
Although her decision to continue representing China remains controversial, she frames it as a personal mission to grow freestyle skiing in China, where interest in winter sports has surged since her triumph in Beijing.
Freestyle skiing and snowboarding at Milan-Cortina Winter Games will be held in Livigno, a three-hour drive northeast of Milan in the Italian Alps.
Snowboarding starts on February 5, with freestyle skiing commencing two days later.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
Copyright (c) 2026. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
2026-02-04T08:23:16Z
