Teen skiing sensation Eileen Gu wins gold in the women’s Freeski big air competition at Beijing’s Shougang Industrial Park.
The home crowd erupted when China’s Eileen Gu won the women’s big air freeskiing gold in Beijing.
Eileen Gu Olympics 2022
Gu had a pressure moment in the qualifies with everything riding on the final jump, in a make or break jump.
However, after landing her opening qualifying jump, Gu failed on her second after losing a ski during the attempt. With the two best scores of three jumps counting toward the skiers’ qualification totals, Gu needed to land her third to have any chance of reaching Tuesday’s final.
Much to the delight of the fans in attendance — and no doubt the millions more watching across the world — she did enough with her third jump to qualify in fifth place.
But then in the final, she excelled Gu jumped into the top position with her third run, scoring 94.50. Her total score was 188.25 in the event’s debut at the Winter Olympics.
She beat France’s Tess Ledeux, who took silver with a score of 187.50. Her first run was her best of the day, with a 94.50.
Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud wins the bronze.
Eileen Gu wins gold and sends social media crazy
The 18-year-old — who elected to represent her mother’s native China over the United States, her country of birth — has become the poster child for these Winter Games, her face adorning billboards across the country.
Many US fans stormed to Twitter with abuse for the Chinese star, some even labelling her a traitor, despite her intention to always represent China in the Olympics.
However, fans on social media in China and the rest of the world rushed to congratulate big air Freeski star Eileen Gu after her gold medal win in Beijing.
On China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo, Gu dominated searches with seven out of the 10 top trending topics all about her victory.
Gu has become a Beijing 2022 poster child for China and has 2.6 million followers on Weibo, with fans leaving 90,000 comments in half an hour after her win.
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