Eileen Gu Will Must Combat for Gold in Robust Slopestyle Discipline

ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old from California who’s representing China on the Beijing Video games, will probably be searching for a second gold medal on the ladies’s freeski slopestyle closing on Tuesday.

It is not going to be simple. Gu’s largest rival is Kelly Sildaru of Estonia, who completed first in qualifying rounds, and a number of other different ladies have cheap expectations to succeed in the rostrum.

The slopestyle course — a collection of rails and obstacles adopted by three huge ski jumps — has been troublesome to finish. Marin Hamill of the USA, who superior to the ultimate ranked seventh, is not going to compete within the occasion after sustaining a leg damage on her second qualifying run. She was taken off the course in an ambulance.

That leaves 11 finalists, together with Hamill’s American teammate, Maggie Voisin, who’s making her third Olympic look. In 2014, she was on the Sochi Video games however broke a leg in coaching earlier than the competitors. Within the 2018 Video games, she completed fourth. She arrived in China hungry for a medal.

A lot of the focus, nevertheless, has been on Gu, who was born and raised in California by a Chinese mother with deep roots in Beijing. She spent a few years with the U.S. nationwide staff earlier than asserting, in 2019, that she would compete for China, partly to assist construct the nation’s winter-sports market.

Gu is an rising star and a ubiquitous presence on Chinese language tv throughout these Olympics. Her face appears to be all over the place, together with within the sky (a recent light show created a portrait of her using more than 500 drones) and in commercials for her many Chinese language sponsors.

Her resolution to compete for China has raised questions in the USA. China doesn’t permit twin citizenship, and Gu has dodged questions on whether or not she has surrendered her U.S. passport. Online critics suggested in recent days that her use of sites that are banned in China indicate that she is out of touch with the struggles of the tens of millions of Chinese language who face censorship.

However throughout her Olympic occasions, she has shined, and China has embraced her warmly. The love affair would solely deepen with one other medal — particularly a gold one.