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| Eileen Gu celebrates her third Olympic medal. |
Before Eileen Gu began her first run down the halfpipe, she closed her eyes and repeated her mantra three times, "My name is Eileen Gu, and I'm the best halfpipe skier in the world."
Then the 18-year old pulled her goggles over her eyes, pushed off on her skis and made history.
Eileen Gu, who competes for China, is the first action-sports athlete to win three medals at the same Olympics -- two gold and one silver.
In her first run, despite wind gusts, her series of spins, the California-born teenager scored a 93.25. On her second run, she scored two points higher.
Waiting for her third ring, she was informed that she was assured a gold medal. She fell to her knees and screamed, "Oh, my god!." In celebration, Gu went down the halfpipe as a sort of victory lap.
“I was very emotional at the top and I chose to do a victory lap,” Gu told the media of her celebratory final run down the halfpipe. “Because I felt like, for the first time, I really deserved it and I really earned it.”
Earlier in the Games, Gu won a gold medal in the freestyle Big Air and a silver in the Slopestyle.
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With winds gusting left to right on a 3 degree F (minus 16 degree C) day, Gu put this contest to rest on her first run. It included a pair of 900-degree spins in different directions, each frosted with full, second-long reaches downward to grab her skis.
Gu scored a 93.25 for that, then on her second run, she scored two points better.
As Gu prepared to head down it for the first time of her last event, she placed her hands on her hips and closed her eyes, then repeated one sentence three times.
“I said ‘My name is Eileen Gu,” she told reporters as tears welled up in her eyes, “and I’m the best halfpipe skier in the world.”
routeOn the medal round of the freestyle halfpipe skiing event
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