Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Olympics 2022: Freestyle skier Eileen Gu wins her second medal for China

China's Eileen Gu wins her second medal at the 2022 Olympics


China's golden girl, San Francisco-born Eileen Gu won her second medal at the Beijing Games and she still has her strongest event coming up.

As a member of China's Olympic team, Gu won a silver medal in the Slopestyle competition for freestyle skiers. The gold medal went to Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland. Kelly Sildaru of Estonia won the bronze.

“I’m happy I was able to push through and turn that pressure into fuel, and it feels so, so good,” Gu said Monday after the Slopestyle event. “My goal coming into the Olympics was to have one gold and have one more podium in a different event. I’ve already met that goal, and going into my strongest event.”

Like her earlier event, Freestyle Skiing Big Air, it came down to her third and last attempt. This time, however, Gu failed to  top Gremaud's score. 

She almost pulled it off, though. Gu landed two 900s on the first and last jump and a double cork 1080 – or two off-axis flips with three spins – on the second jump.

Gu is the favorite to win gold in the Freestyle Skiing Halfpipe event which begins later this week. The Stanford-bound teen has special incentive to perform well in her favorite event. “My grandma's coming out today, so she's gonna watch me compete in halfpipe, which means the world to me,” Gu said. “She's never watching me compete before, so hopefully I can put on a good show for her.”

Eileen Gu rides a rail in one of her runs in the Slopestyle event.

In other Olympic news, Hailey Langland, the Filipino American from San Clemente, California, failed to improve from her 12th place finish Monday in the Snowboard Big Air event. She was the only American to qualify for the finals.

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