Who is Eileen Gu? American skier and Victoria’s Secret model to join TEAM CHINA at Olympics
Eileen Gu, a stunning American-born freestyle skier, and model who could have been America’s next ticket to Olympic gold have decided to join team China. “I have decided to compete for China in the 2022 Winter Olympics,” Gu announced in a tweet in 2019, months after she earned her first World Cup win in Italy at age 15. The news stunned many in the American skiing community who hoped Eileen will compete for the US.
The teen skier also signed with Victoria’s Secret and plans to attend Stanford after she scores gold for Beijing. While others in the sport are confused why Gu would side with the host nation, Eileen maintains that it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for her to promote the sport she loves in her mother’s native home.
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“The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mum was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help promote the sport I love.” She said. The ultra-athletic freeskier is assumed to win as many as three gold medals in the Olympic Games Beijing 2022 which begins this week.
The US ski community recognizes the American-born Gu’s potential to win three golds and is bummed with her decision to represent China. “It’s not my place to judge, but Eileen is from California, not from China, and her decision seems opportunistic,” said Jen Hudak, a former Winter X Games gold medallist for the US women’s team.
“She became the athlete she is because she grew up in the United States, where she had access to premier training grounds and coaching that, as a female, she might not have had in China,” Hudak continued. “I think she would be a different skier if she grew up in China.”
Jen Hudak who retired in the year 2014 after a devastating knee injury that cut short her sporting career says “This makes me sad, It would be nice to see the medals going to America.”
Eileen’s former coach said that Gu made her decision with inputs from her Chinese mother, Yan the “Tiger Mom” and her American father who reportedly keeps a low profile. “Yan is very pleasant but one of the most intense human beings I have ever met in my life. She smiles and tells you how great you are. But then you find out, after the fact, what the requests are. She loves her daughter and wants her daughter to get priority,” said Mike Hanley, head of school at Wy’East Mountain Academy in Oregon.
Who is Eileen Gu?
Eileen Feng Gu aka Ailing Gu is an ultra-athletic American-born freestyle skier. The 18-year-old also has a career as a fashion model for Victoria’s Secret. She was born in San Francisco, California to an American father and a Chinese mother. Yan Gu, Eileen’s mother, was also a skier who moved to the US as a student in her twenties. She put young Eileen into ski lessons at Lake Tahoe where she evidently became a pro. “Accidentally created a pro skier,” said Yan.