Olympics 2022: X Game champ Eileen Gu is ready for the Olympics

X GAMES

Eileen Gu won two golds and a bronze during last weekend's X Games.

X-Games gold medal winner Eileen Gu, a Chinese American, will continue to compete for China when the Olympics is held in Beijing in 2022.

Although she calls San Francisco her home, 17-year old Eileen Gu competed in last weekend's Winter X Games, where she won two golds and a bronze.

Gu competes in freestyle skiing, an event that combines gymnastic-like flips and twists while on speeding down a slope in skis.

Gu's victories with two golds and bronze in her skiing debut in Aspen, Colorado, is unprecedented in the X Games 20 year history.

“This is something I wouldn’t even dare to dream of. I came into this contest with a goal of getting one podium, and I thought that was ambitious,” she said after winning a gold medal in Saturday’s slopestyle.

Gu, who is fluent in Mandarin and whose mother was born in China, grew up training and competing for the U.S. team, made her "difficult" decision to represent China in 2019. In an Instagram post, she wrote:

"I have decided to compete for China in the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics. This was an incredibly tough decision for me to make. I am extremely thankful for U.S. Ski & Snowboard ( @usfreeskiteam ) and the Chinese Ski Association for having the vision and belief in me to make my dreams come true. 

"I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings. 

In a 2020 interview with ESPN, Gu said, "Since I was little, I've always said when I'm in the U.S., I'm American, but when I'm in China, I'm Chinese."

"The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love. Through skiing, I hope to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations. If I can help to inspire one young girl to break a boundary, my wishes will have come true."

Eileen Gu wins another gold medal at the X Games in Aspen, Colo.

The California teenager, who will be attending Stanford next fall, is also a fashion model where she's walk the catwalk in New York and Paris fashion shows. She said she loves the sound of camera's clicking.

Gu undoubtedly will be one of the faces that the media focuses on when the Olympics begin a year from now if the Games are not boycotted because of the host country's clampdown on dissent in Hong Kong and its harsh treatment of minorities.

International human rights organizations are making similar demands to relocate the series of high-profile sporting events. In September, more than 160 of them wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asking for the Games to be moved out of China.

“The IOC must recognize that the Olympic spirit and the reputation of the Olympic Games will suffer further damage if the worsening human rights crisis, across all areas under China’s control, is simply ignored,” the letter reads. It also says that stripping Beijing of the Games would fulfill the Committee’s duty to “abide by the Olympic Charter’s core principles about ‘human dignity.’”

Her decision to represent China has brought her a lot hate on her social media accounts, reports the Independent. As her story edges closer to the Olympic flame, she expects the volume of hate to increase.

"'Difficult' is the wrong word, but she weighed everything very heavily," her agent, Tom Yaps, told the Independent. "At the end of the day, she really feels she can make an impact in these young women's lives. She looked around and said, 'There are so many brilliant role models in the U.S. already,' and she felt her voice could really make an impact over there."

"Some people retire with 10 gold medals and then, they're 30 years old and don't know what to do," said Gu. "But I want to be able to have those medals and to be able to feel like I've changed someone's life or changed the sport or introduced the sport to a country where it wasn't before."

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