Born and raised in the US, Eileen Gu competed for China at the 2026 Winter Olympics and won gold in the freeski halfpipe and silver in big air and slopestyle. Despite her achievements, her victories have sparked controversy!

Most recently, US political figures have spoken out about her choice to compete under the Chinese flag. Now, she has addressed her decision.

“A lot of people won’t understand or believe that I made a decision to create the greatest amount of positive impact on the world stage that I could, at this age, given my interests and passions.”

The debate intensified after comments from US Vice President J.D. Vance, who said during the Olympics that he preferred that athletes who grew up and were educated in America represent the USA at the Olympics.

“I’m going to root for American athletes, and I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That’s who I’m rooting for this Olympics,” he noted.

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Responding to critics, Eileen Gu reflected on her childhood experiences in sports. Her first public speech was when she was 11 years old, talking about being the only girl on her ski team.

“I was made painfully aware of the lack of representation,” she recalled that at nine, she felt she represented all women every time she entered a terrain park.

“Landing tricks was about more than progression … it was about disproving the derisive implication of what it meant to ‘ski like a girl.’”

Gu spent every summer since age eight running ski camps in China, coaching children and young athletes.

“Skiing for Team China meant the opportunity to uplift others through the universal culture of sport, and to introduce freeskiing to hundreds of millions of people who had never heard of it, especially with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics around the corner,” she shared.