LIVIGNO, Italy — Eileen Gu could be on her way to another medal on Monday in the women’s freeski giant aerial final. She will likely attend the press conference as usual and dodge any questions about the true nature of her citizenship, the political implications of her choice as a 15-year-old girl to represent China (rather than the United States, where she was born) in the Olympics, and the various human rights atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Then, 5,000 miles away in the United States, the outrage will begin — both at Gu’s disloyalty to the country of her birth and at those who document her achievements here, because we won’t take the time to pursue the dozen dead ends about the Uyghurs, Taiwan, and the criminalization of Jimmy Lai on social media eager to create a viral gotcha moment to bring Gu out and expose her fraud.
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Eileen Gu, 22, an international relations student at Stanford University, is many things. She is an opportunist. Her outward ambition makes you wonder how deep her cynicism runs deep. She tells the complex story of her life through the lens of a saccharine-coated world that doesn’t exist and becomes evasive when anything controversial enters her orbit. She can say a lot without saying too much.
She is all of these and probably more.
But she’s not stupid, and she’s never been unruly in siding with a government that made her very, very rich.
Silver medalist Gu Ailing of China wears the Chinese flag after the women’s freestyle ski slopestyle final at the 2026 Winter Olympics. (AP Photo/Lindsay Watson)
(Associated Press)
So to the extent that she dedicated her life to being an opportunist, maybe it didn’t matter which country she represented when she put on her skis because her ability to exploit the system to its advantage was as American as apple pie.
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Many of you seem to want answers? Sorry, they’re not coming – certainly not in a press conference room in the Italian Alps, jumping off a 15-story ramp. They may never come.
Did she ignore China’s laws that do not allow dual citizenship and make a deal with the CCP to keep her U.S. passport?
Did the $6.6 million she and another American-born athlete receive from the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau last year, according to the Wall Street Journal — an amount that was accidentally disclosed in a financial report and then deleted from the Internet — come with unsavory strings attached?
Does she really believe that encouraging Chinese women to participate in winter sports will make women’s lives better in a regime that lags far behind most of the modern world in terms of political representation, economic opportunity and the rights of victims of domestic violence?
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She’s been asked all of these things many times over the years in many different venues. While she’s great on the slopes, she’s even better on Never Go There.
As she told Time magazine’s Sean Gregory in an in-depth report ahead of the Cortina Games in Milan, when asked how to respond to questions about Donald Trump’s tariffs on China: “I just said, ‘I didn’t know I was being promoted to trade secretary.’ It would be irresponsible for me to be the spokesperson for any agenda.” “
So for Gu Ailing, we all have to make a choice.
Do we want to drive ourselves to the edge of insanity with some foaming-at-the-mouth tirade about wearing the flag of an oppressive regime, or do we accept her for who she is: a really good skier with no real impact on what really matters in China or the United States, but who found a way to use her talent, her looks, and her perfect Mandarin to become a more important figure at the Winter Olympics than any other athlete.
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In a small defense of Gu, it’s worth remembering that she made the choice to play for China when she was just 15 years old.
What do you think she knows at 15, her mother was a single mother and she was raised by Chinese. At that age, I suspect she saw this as more than just a business decision – one that, while admittedly complicated and perhaps ethically questionable, proved to be the right one for her bank account and list of sponsors who wanted a piece of Gu’s business.
She had reason to think it would become this? Do we have it? People change nationalities all the time in sports – both ways. She did this before the brutal crackdown in Hong Kong, before most people understood the scope of atrocities against minorities in Xinjiang, and before COVID-19. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, but the context of choice then is not the context of choice now.
Since becoming an international superstar and a four-time Olympic medalist (with perhaps two more coming to Livigno), Gu has not spent her social capital extolling the virtues of China’s censorship and economic system. She spoke about bridging divides and inspiring young people with her athletic achievements. She was very clear about not wanting to get involved in the culture wars that others were trying to drag her into.
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It may be cynical, but don’t a lot of fans want athletes to stick with sports?
Here’s the thing: Gu may be wearing a five-star red flag on her ski jacket, but the only entity she really represents is Gu’s Irene Company. Portraying her on social media as something other than that, in order to stoke America’s political outrage, represents something almost as unsavory as she is.
