Eileen Gu - The 'snow Princess' Who Divides Opinion
ByKatie Falkingham
BBC Sport Senior Journalist in Livigno
Updated 22 February 2026
Wherever Eileen Gu goes, her fans will follow. Headlines will too.
With six medals, consisting of 3 golds - the 3rd of which she won in Sunday's halfpipe - she is the most decorated freestyle skier in the history of the Games.
But she is likewise someone who transcends her sport, a 22-year-old international superstar with a bank balance to make your eyes water.
China fell for its 'snow princess' at the Beijing 2022 Olympics where, as the poster lady of the Games, she appropriately provided.
She became freestyle skiing's youngest Olympic champion with her huge air and halfpipe golds at the age of 18, and the first to win three medals at the very same Games when she added slopestyle silver.
Later that year, she was named one of Time publication's 100 most prominent people in the world.
"I similar to being the very best. I have actually always desired to do that," stated Gu at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, where she earlier won silver medals in the big air and slopestyle.
"I wanted to be the finest at mathematics when I was in kindergarten, and after that I desired to get into the very best high school, and I wished to have the greatest SAT score, and after that I wished to get to the best college, and I wanted to be the very best skier I might be.
"Then I wished to do every event, and then I wanted to win them all. When you get a taste of it, it's kind of addictive."
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On and off skis, Gu is a high achiever in every part of her world.
California-born and raised by an American dad and Chinese mother, she went to private school in San Francisco and is presently taking a sabbatical from her research studies at Stanford University, where she majors in global relations and previously studied quantum physics.
She is likewise proficient in Mandarin, and as a child would invest summertimes in Beijing.
"Sometimes it seems like I'm carrying the weight of two countries on my shoulders," Gu said earlier in the 2026 Games.
In 2019, at the age of simply 15, she switched her sporting allegiance from the US to China, desiring to "motivate millions of young people in Beijing - my mother's birth place" before the 2022 Olympics.
Whatever her reasoning, it was a choice that proved rewarding.
In December, Forbes ranked Gu as the fourth-highest paid female athlete for 2025, behind only tennis players Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek.
But unlike those 3, just a small quantity of her $23.1 m (₤ 17.1 m) earnings in 2015 came from cash prize from her sport - around $100,000 (₤ 74,000).
Instead, it comes through endorsements with brand names such as Red Bull, Porsche and Tiffany & Co, while she has strolled the runway for Louis Vuitton and Victoria's Secret and is signed by modelling company IMG.
It also emerged in 2025, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, external, that Gu and another professional athlete were set to be paid a combined $6.6 m (₤ 4.9 m) by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau.
In overall, the two athletes were stated to be paid nearly $14m (₤ 10.4 m) over the past 3 years by the Bureau.
But her decision to compete for China was likewise one that drew much criticism, not just due to the fact that of China and the US' competition as the world's two biggest economies, but because of China's authoritarian Communist Party rulers and its poor record on human rights - which it rejects.
While the initial furore waned, it has actually raised its head once again at these Games.
At the start of the Olympics, American freestyle skier Hunter Hess spoke out about the actions of the United States' Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) organisation and ongoing stress in the US.
In January, extensive care nurse Alex Pretti, 37, and fellow Minnesota resident Renee Good, 37, were both killed by ICE representatives in the city, sparking widespread demonstrations.
Asked what it implies to represent the USA, Hess stated: "It's a little difficult.
"Just because I'm wearing the flag does not suggest I represent everything that's going on in the US."
President Donald Trump responded to Hess' comment by calling him a "real loser", and Gu was among numerous athletes who openly defended Hess and others speaking out.
"As someone who's been captured in the crossfire previously, I feel sorry for the athletes," she stated.
But that infuriated her critics, given Gu chose to speak out versus Trump however has never criticised China.
Former NBA gamer Enes Kanter Freedom called her a "traitor", including she "was born in America, raised in America, resides in America and selected to compete versus her own nation for the worst human rights abuser on the planet - China".
"You do not get to delight in the flexibilities of US citizenship while serving as a global PR asset for the Chinese Communist Party," he wrote on X.
When asked about China's human rights record by Time magazine, external, in an interview published in January, she addressed: "I'm not a professional on this.
"I haven't done the research. I do not believe it's my company."
A 'absurd point of view' and 'frustrating decisions'
Gu has 2.6 m fans on Instagram, has generated 11.7 m likes on TikTok, and at the Livigno Snow Park high up in the Italian Alps, no professional athlete has more fans in participation.
Clad in the red colours of China, they line the front of the fan locations, flags adorned with images of Gu's face pegged to the fences, and celebrate her every run like it has actually clinched Olympic gold.
After every run, the ever-driven and disciplined Gu looks for her mom, Yan, to examine video footage on her phone. Yan, apparently a successful investor who brought her daughter up single-handledly, is accredited at the Games and is the first person Gu celebrates her successes with.
During Monday's huge air final, Yan was seen enjoying alongside previous International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
After competitors, Gu is the one every media outlet wishes to talk to, and she with dignity and nicely obliges as she slowly shuffles through the combined zone.
But it was from a press conference previously today that her remarks to a journalist went viral, when she was asked if she felt her 2 silver medals were actually 2 golds lost.
"I'm the most embellished female freeskier in history. I think that's a response in and of itself," she responded.
"How do I say this? Winning a medal at the Olympics is a life-changing experience for each professional athlete. Doing it five times is tremendously harder because every medal is similarly for me however everybody else's expectations rise, best?
"So the 2 medals lost circumstance, to be rather frank with you, I think is kind of an outrageous viewpoint to take.
"I'm showcasing my best snowboarding, I'm doing things that quite literally have never ever been done before so I think that is more than good enough. But thank you."
In the lead-up to the Games, Gu did interviews with the likes of Vogue and Time magazine, however it was reports in the Swiss media, external that had the possible to more fuel a competitive rivalry at the top of the sport.
It was reported that the coach of Swiss skier Mathilde Gremaud left her group to join Gu's on the eve of the Games, just as he had 4 years earlier before Beijing 2022.
At those Games, Gremaud pipped Gu to slopestyle gold, while Gu won the huge air title with Gremaud taking bronze.
This time around, Gremaud once again won slopestyle gold, with Gu taking silver, while the Swiss star withdrew from the huge air after a crash, with Gu going on to finish second once again.
Before that big air final and as an outcome of reaching it, Gu had actually required to Instagram to highlight a scheduling issue.
It indicated, as the only female competing in three freeski occasions, she would miss a full day of halfpipe training. After interesting the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) for another opportunity to train, she said she had actually been turned down.
"This choice is frustrating to me due to the fact that it seems to contradict the spirit of the Games," she stated.
"Daring to be the only female to contend in three events should not be penalised. Making finals in one occasion should not downside me in another."
BBC Sport comprehends Gu had already been handpicked as one of 10 professional athletes - five men, 5 females - welcomed to a halfpipe screening training session, while having 3 official training sessions is more than the typical two held before World Cups.
In a declaration, FIS told BBC Sport: "For athletes who choose to contend in several disciplines and/or multiple events, conflicts can in some cases be inevitable."
So severe is Gu taking these Olympics that she has actually brought 21 sets of skis with her to Livigno, seven per event. Asked by BBC Sport the number of she would generally take to a competitors, she replied two or 3.
She certified 5th for the halfpipe final, which was later on postponed from Saturday to Sunday due to heavy snowfall, and looked listed below par in her opening run when she crashed on her first trick.
Gu redeemed herself on the second run, however, posting a 94.00 score that moved her to the top of the podium, and improved it again to 94.75 on her last effort to protect her title.
Compatriot Li Fanghui took silver, while Great Britain's Zoe Atkin won bronze.
"I am not a gambling female, however if I were, I took a quite huge bet on myself," said Gu.
"There was a chance that everything could fail, and I would win absolutely nothing since I'm attempting to do excessive. But in my head I resembled, 'Even if everything crashes and burns, I tried, and I will never regret trying'.
"It's not hesitating to attempt, particularly as young women too, because a great deal of the time we get in our own way and there's this sense of, 'What if individuals laugh at me? What if I look stupid? What if it's not possible?'.
"It's trusting yourself to try, and if it doesn't work, that's OK. But who understands? Strive the stars."
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