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 6 medals, including 3 golds - the third 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 super star with a bank balance to make your eyes water.
China fell for its 'snow princess' at the Beijing 2022 Olympics where, as the poster woman of the Games, she properly delivered.
She became freestyle skiing's youngest Olympic champ with her big air and halfpipe golds at the age of 18, and the very first to win three medals at the exact same Games when she added slopestyle silver.
Later that year, she was named one of Time publication's 100 most prominent individuals in the world.
"I just like being the very best. I've constantly wanted to do that," said Gu at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, where she earlier won silver medals in the huge air and slopestyle.
"I wished to be the very best at math when I was in kindergarten, and after that I wished to get into the best high school, and I wished to have the greatest SAT score, and then I wanted to get to the best college, and I wished to be the finest skier I could be.
"Then I wished to do every event, and after that I desired to win them all. When you get a taste of it, it's type 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 participated in independent school in San Francisco and is presently taking a sabbatical from her studies at Stanford University, where she majors in worldwide relations and previously studied quantum physics.
She is also fluent in Mandarin, and as a child would spend summertimes in Beijing.
"Sometimes it seems like I'm carrying the weight of 2 countries on my shoulders," Gu said earlier in the 2026 Games.
In 2019, at the age of just 15, she switched her sporting allegiance from the US to China, wanting to "influence countless youths in Beijing - my mom's birthplace" before the 2022 Olympics.
Whatever her reasoning, it was a decision that proved financially rewarding.
In December, Forbes ranked Gu as the fourth-highest paid female athlete for 2025, behind only tennis gamers Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek.
But unlike those 3, just a small quantity of her $23.1 m (₤ 17.1 m) earnings last year originated from cash prize from her sport - around $100,000 (₤ 74,000).
Instead, it comes through endorsements 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 modelling company IMG.
It also emerged in 2025, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, external, that Gu and another athlete were set to be paid a combined $6.6 m (₤ 4.9 m) by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau.
In total, the two professional athletes were stated to be paid nearly $14m (₤ 10.4 m) over the previous 3 years by the Bureau.
But her decision to contend for China was likewise one that drew much criticism, not even if of China and the US' competition as the world's 2 greatest economies, however since of China's authoritarian Communist Party rulers and its poor record on human rights - which it denies.
While the preliminary furore waned, it has actually raised its head 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 tensions in the US.
In January, intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, 37, and fellow Minnesota homeowner Renee Good, 37, were both eliminated by ICE representatives in the city, stimulating prevalent protests.
Asked what it suggests to represent the USA, Hess stated: "It's a little hard.
"Just since I'm wearing the flag doesn't suggest I represent whatever that's going on in the US."
President Donald Trump reacted to Hess' remark by calling him a "real loser", and Gu was among numerous professional athletes who publicly defended Hess and others speaking out.
"As someone who's been captured in the crossfire previously, I pity the athletes," she said.
But that infuriated her critics, offered Gu picked to speak out against Trump but has actually never ever criticised China.
Former NBA gamer Enes Kanter Freedom called her a "traitor", adding she "was born in America, raised in America, lives in America and selected to complete versus her own nation for the worst human rights abuser on earth - China".
"You don't get to enjoy the flexibilities of US citizenship while acting as a worldwide PR property 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 answered: "I'm not a professional on this.
"I have not done the research. I do not believe it's my business."
A 'outrageous perspective' 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 athlete has more fans in participation.
Clad in the red colours of China, they line the front of the fan areas, 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 review video footage on her phone. Yan, apparently an effective investor who brought her daughter up single-handledly, is recognized at the Games and is the first individual Gu commemorates her successes with.
During Monday's big air last, Yan was seen watching together with former International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
After competitors, Gu is the one every media outlet wishes to speak to, and she with dignity and nicely obliges as she slowly shuffles through the blended zone.
But it was from an interview earlier this week that her remarks to a journalist went viral, when she was asked if she felt her 2 silver medals were really 2 golds lost.
"I'm the most embellished female freeskier in history. I believe that's a response in and of itself," she responded.
"How do I state this? Winning a medal at the Olympics is a life-changing experience for every single professional athlete. Doing it 5 times is greatly harder due to the fact that every medal is similarly difficult for me but everyone increase, ideal?
"So the 2 medals lost scenario, to be quite frank with you, I think is type of an outrageous viewpoint to take.
"I'm showcasing my best snowboarding, I'm doing things that rather literally have never been done before so I believe that is more than sufficient. But thank you."
In the lead-up to the Games, Gu did interviews with the likes of Vogue and Time publication, however it was reports in the Swiss media, external that had the potential to further fuel a competitive competition at the top of the sport.
It was reported that the coach of Swiss skier Mathilde Gremaud left her team 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 finish 2nd once again.
Before that big air final and as an outcome of reaching it, Gu had actually required to Instagram to highlight a scheduling problem.
It meant, as the only woman contending in three freeski occasions, she would miss out on a complete day of halfpipe training. After appealing to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) for another opportunity to train, she said she had been refused.
"This choice is disappointing to me because it appears to oppose the spirit of the Games," she said.
"Daring to be the only female to complete in three events must not be punished. Making finals in one event must not downside me in another."
BBC Sport understands Gu had currently been handpicked as one of 10 professional athletes - 5 men, 5 ladies - invited to a halfpipe screening training session, while having 3 main training sessions is more than the typical 2 held before World Cups.
In a statement, FIS informed BBC Sport: "For professional athletes who choose to compete in multiple disciplines and/or numerous events, disputes can sometimes be inevitable."
So severe is Gu taking these Olympics that she has brought 21 pairs of skis with her to Livigno, 7 per event. Asked by BBC Sport the number of she would typically require to a competitors, she replied two or 3.
She qualified 5th for the halfpipe final, which was later on held off from Saturday to Sunday due to heavy snowfall, and looked below par in her opening run when she crashed on her very 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 bettered it again to 94.75 on her final effort to defend her title.
Compatriot Li Fanghui took silver, while Great Britain's Zoe Atkin won bronze.
"I am not a gambling female, but if I were, I took a pretty big bet on myself," stated Gu.
"There was a chance that everything could go wrong, and I would stroll away with nothing since I'm attempting to do too much. But in my head I was like, 'Even if everything crashes and burns, I attempted, and I will never ever regret attempting'.
"It's not being afraid to attempt, specifically as young females too, since a lot of the time we get in our own method and there's this sense of, 'What if people laugh at me? What if I look silly? 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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