LIVIGNO, Italy — Gu Ailin’s second Winter Olympics isn’t going as well as her first, but judging by the way she celebrated her big aerial silver medal win, she won’t leave disappointed.
The freestyle skiing team was stronger and their moves were bigger and better than they were four years ago when they competed in Beijing. The American-born Gu, now representing China, was unable to defend her gold medal at the event, but she had two good finishes, only to be beaten by a strong move from Canada’s Megan Oldham. Flora Tabanelli of Italy won the bronze medal.
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Gu had excellent results in the first round with a double cork score of 90.00 and a double cork score of 1440, but her second round results were mediocre, leaving her in a precarious position heading into the final round.
In the big air, skiers have three attempts and are ranked based on the sum of their two best times.
Gu’s final jump was spectacular – a perfectly executed left double jam that inspired her to pump her fists in the air, resulting in a score of 89.00, which put her in second place behind Oldham, a position she held until the end of the competition.
This is Gu’s second medal at the Olympics, having previously won a silver medal in slopestyle. She returned to Stanford with more hardware, and after the Olympics she reenrolled as a junior, where she was also the reigning gold medalist in the halfpipe.
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The start of the big air final was delayed by 75 minutes because heavy snow and wind gusts of up to 18 mph made conditions too dangerous for a sport in which athletes slide down 15-story slopes, leap into the air and perform their biggest stunts.
Although conditions improved, the snow was still falling at the start of the final and continued to snow throughout. But that didn’t stop the contestants from trying all kinds of huge tricks – including Muir’s left double cork 1620 – a 4 ½ full spin, two off-axis flips and a Cindy grab – which scored a 93.0 and if she could pull off one more big trick in the final round, she would have won.
Ironically, this is exactly the bold trick that Gu will pull off in his third and final attempt to win a second gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. In an attempt to make something special happen again and repeat what GU did four years ago, Muir put in a strong performance on his final run, but came up short.
Two Swiss skiers, Anouk Andraska and Mathilde Gremaud, were forced to withdraw from the final after sustaining injuries during training on the Monday before the final.
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According to an official release from the Swiss Ski Association, Gremaud beat Gu to win the slopestyle gold medal last week, but she injured her hip and was originally a strong contender for the podium in the air. It’s unclear whether the injury will sideline her from the halfpipe competition scheduled for this weekend.
