OlymPicks: Chinese-American Skier Makes Historic X Games Debut, One Year Countdown Begins

In OlymPicks, we highlight news, gossip, and developments regarding the buildup to Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics.

Chinese-American freeskier, Eileen Gu's historic X Games debut

At last weekend’s Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, Chinese-American freeskier Eileen Gu made more than a few histories when she took home two gold medals and a bronze. The 17-year-old native of San Francisco began her X Games debut on Friday, Jan 29 with a bronze finish in the women’s ski big air. Then, that evening, she beat out Olympic gold medalist Cassie Sharp to clinch first place in the women’s ski superpipe contest.

The following day, she topped her weekend off with a gold-medal win in the women’s ski slopestyle contest, culminating in a remarkable performance that made her the first woman and second overall to win two gold medals as an X Games rookie, the first woman and second overall to earn three X Games medals as a rookie, and the first athlete representing China to win X Games gold. That's quite a resume she's building up!

Incidentally, this wasn't the first time that Gu scored a gold medal for her motherland. In fact, at the age of 15, she became the first naturalized Chinese citizen to win a gold medal at an international competition when she took the top spot in the women's slopestyle event at the Australian New Zealand Cup.

Despite having grown up in the US, back in June of 2019, Gu announced on Instagram that she would actually be competing for China’s national team at the 2022 Winter Olympics. In the post, she explained, “I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings. The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help promote the sport I love.”

Likewise, speaking to NBC Sports after her unprecedented X Games finish, Gu doubled-down on the sentiment, saying, “Some people retire with ten gold medals and then they’re 30 years old and don’t know what to do. But I want to be able to have those medals and to be able to feel like I’ve changed someone’s life or changed the sport or introduced the sport to a country where it wasn’t before.

To be sure, Gu is already something of a firebrand. Aside from her time on the slopes, she has a well-established modeling career, having graced the pages of Vogue, Harper’s, and Elle, and was also included in Forbes’ China’s 30 Under 30 list for entertainment and sports. Moreover, she’s an accomplished pianist and was recently admitted to Stanford University, where she’ll begin studies in 2022. All of which is to say, if you haven’t heard the name Eileen Gu before this article, chances are you’re going to start hearing it a lot over the next year. And with any luck – nay – incredible skill, a dose of talent, and some unwavering determination, China’s women’s ski teams may be looking at some gold next year.

One year to go!

We’re officially one year out from the start of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, and to celebrate the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a whole slate of super fun activities lined up. Of course, all of the events will be hosted digitally, and there’s more than enough to bring out your inner Olympian. To start, the “One Year to Go” milestone is when IOC President Thomas Bach formally invites all of the Olympic athletes to participate in the Games. The ceremony will be broadcast tonight at 7.55pm on China’s national television networks, and will subsequently be released on the Olympic Channel.

Then, from now until Feb 20 – the same period that the Games will take place in 2022 – various winter athletes will be taking over the official Olympic Instagram account to host live chats and share photos of everything from their daily life and training routines to expectations for the big competition. If that weren’t enough, folks can also interact live with athletes through the official Olympian and Paralympian Online Experiences portal, providing users the rare opportunity to join virtual activities such as workouts and mentoring sessions with their favorite competitors. For a full list of events and happenings, check out the Olympic Channel.

READ: OlymPicks: Two-Sport Paralympic Athlete Opts for Beijing 2022 Over Tokyo 2021

Images: Aspen Times, CBC, olympic.org