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, including three 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 also someone who transcends her sport, a 22-year-old international superstar with a bank balance to make your eyes water.
China fell in love with its 'snow princess' at the Beijing 2022 Olympics where, as the poster girl of the Games, she duly provided.
She became freestyle skiing's youngest Olympic champion with her huge air and halfpipe golds at the age of 18, and the very 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 influential people on the planet.
"I much like 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 wished to be the very best at mathematics when I remained in kindergarten, and then I wanted to enter into the very best high school, and I wished to have the greatest SAT rating, and then I wished to get to the very best college, and I wanted to be the very best skier I might be.
"Then I wished to do every event, and after that I wished to win them all. When you get a taste of it, it's type of addicting."
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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 father and Chinese mother, she attended personal school in San Francisco and is presently taking a sabbatical from her studies at Stanford University, where she majors in global relations and previously studied quantum physics.
She is likewise proficient in Mandarin, and as a kid would spend summertimes in Beijing.
"Sometimes it feels like I'm bring the weight of two countries on my shoulders," Gu said previously in the 2026 Games.
In 2019, at the age of just 15, she changed her sporting loyalty from the US to China, wishing to "motivate millions of young people in Beijing - my mother's birthplace" before the 2022 Olympics.
Whatever her thinking, it was a decision that showed lucrative.
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, only a tiny quantity of her $23.1 m (₤ 17.1 m) income last year came from reward money from her sport - around $100,000 (₤ 74,000).
Instead, it comes through recommendations with brands such as Red Bull, Porsche and Tiffany & Co, while she has walked the runway for Louis Vuitton and Victoria's Secret and is signed by designing agency 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 2 athletes were stated to be paid nearly $14m (₤ 10.4 m) over the previous three years by the Bureau.
But her decision to contend for China was also one that drew much criticism, not just because of China and the US' rivalry as the world's two greatest economies, however because of China's authoritarian Communist Party rulers and its poor record on human rights - which it denies.
While the initial furore passed away down, it has actually raised its head once again at these Games.
At the start of the Olympics, American freestyle skier Hunter Hess spoke up about the actions of the United States' Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) organisation and ongoing tensions in the US.
In January, extensive care nurse Alex Pretti, 37, and fellow Minnesota citizen Renee Good, 37, were both killed by ICE representatives in the city, sparking prevalent demonstrations.
Asked what it suggests to represent the USA, Hess stated: "It's a little difficult.
"Just since I'm wearing the flag does not mean I represent whatever that's going on in the US."
President Donald Trump reacted to Hess' comment by calling him a "real loser", and Gu was among a number of professional athletes who publicly defended Hess and others speaking out.
"As somebody who's been captured in the crossfire previously, I pity the athletes," she stated.
But that enraged her critics, provided Gu selected to speak out against Trump but has never ever criticised China.
Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom called her a "traitor", adding she "was born in America, raised in America, lives in America and picked to contend against her own country for the worst human rights abuser on the world - China".
"You don't get to take pleasure in the liberties of US citizenship while functioning as a global PR possession for the Chinese Communist Party," he wrote on X.
When asked about China's human rights record by Time magazine, external, in an in January, she responded to: "I'm not a specialist on this.
"I have not done the research. I do not believe it's my organization."
A 'ridiculous point of view' and 'frustrating choices'
Gu has 2.6 m fans on Instagram, has accumulated 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 attendance.
Clad in the red colours of China, they line the front of the fan locations, flags embellished with pictures of Gu's face pegged to the fences, and commemorate her every run like it has clinched Olympic gold.
After every run, the ever-driven and disciplined Gu seeks out her mom, Yan, to review video footage on her phone. Yan, supposedly an effective investor who brought her child up single-handledly, is certified at the Games and is the very first person Gu commemorates her successes with.
During Monday's huge air final, Yan was seen seeing along with previous International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
After competitions, Gu is the one every media outlet wants to talk to, and she gracefully and pleasantly obliges as she slowly mixes through the combined zone.
But it was from a press conference previously today that her remarks to a reporter went viral, when she was asked if she felt her 2 silver medals were in fact two golds lost.
"I'm the most embellished female freeskier in history. I believe that's an answer in and of itself," she replied.
"How do I say this? Winning a medal at the Olympics is a life-altering experience for every professional athlete. Doing it five times is significantly harder because every medal is similarly difficult for me but everybody else's expectations increase, right?
"So the 2 medals lost circumstance, to be quite frank with you, I think is type of an outrageous viewpoint to take.
"I'm showcasing my finest skiing, I'm doing things that quite actually have never been done before so I think that is more than great enough. But thank you."
In the lead-up to the Games, Gu did interviews with the likes of Vogue and Time publication, but it was reports in the Swiss media, external that had the prospective 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 four 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 big air after a crash, with Gu going on to end up 2nd once again.
Before that huge air last and as a result of reaching it, Gu had taken to Instagram to highlight a scheduling concern.
It indicated, as the only lady completing in three freeski occasions, she would miss out on a full day of halfpipe training. After appealing to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) for another chance to train, she stated she had been denied.
"This choice is disappointing to me since it seems to oppose the spirit of the Games," she said.
"Daring to be the only lady to complete in three occasions should not be penalised. Making finals in one occasion need to not disadvantage me in another."
BBC Sport comprehends Gu had already been handpicked as one of 10 professional athletes - 5 men, five women - invited to a halfpipe testing training session, while having 3 main training sessions is more than the normal two held before World Cups.
In a declaration, FIS informed BBC Sport: "For professional athletes who pick to complete in multiple disciplines and/or multiple occasions, disputes can sometimes be inevitable."
So serious is Gu taking these Olympics that she has actually brought 21 sets of skis with her to Livigno, seven per occasion. Asked by BBC Sport the number of she would generally take to a competition, she replied two or 3.
She certified 5th for the halfpipe last, which was later on postponed from Saturday to Sunday due to heavy snowfall, and looked below par in her opening run when she crashed on her first technique.
Gu redeemed herself on the second run, though, posting a 94.00 rating that moved her to the top of the podium, and bettered 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 gaming woman, however if I were, I took a quite huge bet on myself," stated Gu.
"There was an opportunity that whatever could fail, and I would leave with nothing due to the fact that I'm trying to do too much. But in my head I resembled, 'Even if whatever crashes and burns, I tried, and I will never ever be sorry for attempting'.
"It's not hesitating to try, specifically as girls too, because a great deal of the time we get in our own way and there's this sense of, 'What if people make fun of me? What if I look stupid? What if it's not possible?'.
"It's trusting yourself to attempt, and if it does not work, that's OK. But who understands? Shoot for the stars."
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