Ski superstar Gu hails being a ‘biracial young woman’ after making Olympic history
Former Team USA star Eileen Gu won her third medal for China at the Winter Olympics – and the Chinese-American sensation said her history-making triumph at the Beijing Games is a triumph for "representation and sporting equity" that she hopes will inspire future generations.
California-born Gu, who has an American father, a grandfather from Shanghai and a grandmother from Nanjing and switched teams as a 15-year-old in 2019, added halfpipe gold to her big air triumph and slopestyle silver, capping an exceptional showing at the Games which the crossover star admitted would change her life.
Now 18, Gu has more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram and has been on the cover of numerous fashion magazines, as well as securing lucrative sponsorship and advertising deals with huge brands in the US and China.
"Extreme sports, we all know, are heavily dominated by men," the two-time world champion said after capturing her second gold medal and becoming the first freestyle skier to win Olympic medals in three different events.
"Stereotypically, it has not had the kind of representation and sporting equity that it should, so as a young bi-racial woman, it is super-important to be able to reach those milestones and be able to push boundaries – not only mine own, but those of the sport and the record books because that's what paves the paths for the next generation of girls.
"The girls at home can look at TV and see someone who looks like them, and that's the first time they hear about free skiing.
"It's so different if you hear about free skiing from the mouth of a middle-aged man versus from a young girl, right?
"When you see yourself in the sport, it totally changes your perception of what you can do in it."
Doubts have been cast this week over how relatable Gu realistically is for most young people.
Millions of people have watched makeup tutorials on Chinese social media network Weibo showing them how to get Gu's 'biracial look', according to Vice, which said that further scrutiny of the athlete and model's background has revealed the gap between her privileged background and the upbringing of many of her admirers.
“The success of her and the elite education behind her is beyond what an average person would achieve with their resources,” feminist influencer Chen Xiaoyu is quoted to have said in a video that has been viewed more than 3.7 million times.
“When you overplay her personal effort, you are ignoring the huge structural inequality in resources and class.”
Gu is said to have been born into a Chinese family that could afford a privileged life in an affluent area, and her mother worked at financial firm Lehman Brothers and became a venture capitalist.
“What Gu has received is purely elite education and most people cannot replicate the wealth and energy her mother has,” said Doreen Huang, the mother of a six-year-old girl in the northwestern city of Xi’an.
“Now China is so involuted. For a family like ours, we would be content with letting our child become a healthy, happy, average person.”
Gu has endured fierce criticism from some over choosing to compete for a country which has been the subject of a diplomatic boycott from countries including the US because of its alleged human rights crimes.
She has appeared to defend China in censorshop rows and has not fully addressed the question of her suspected dual nationalities.
There is no doubt that Gu is at least partly the inspirational force she yearns to be. “I can imagine many Chinese – especially young women – feel suppressed by such culture and therefore find Gu’s confidence emancipatory to some extent," said Yawen Li, a literature and gender researcher with the National University of Singapore and King’s College London.
Gu clearly believes her ambitions are realistic for anyone. Speaking about what she wants women to take from her, she said: "If a girl sees what I did and she's like, 'wow, Eileen can do all three events – you don't have to pick one. If she can go to school on the side and work in the fashion industry and do all these other little side hobbies because she wants to, then I can too.'
"My biggest, biggest, biggest goal is to have fun for myself but also to break the boundaries of the boxes that people get put in.
"In terms of extreme sports, it's a huge honor to be able to be the first free skier to podium in three events as a woman. It makes me very hopeful about what the next generation will be able to accomplish."
The Games continue until February 20 2022.
