It’s hard to fathom the pressure that Eileen Gu would have been feeling as she waited to drop into her third jump of freeski big air qualifying on Monday.
The 18-year-old — who elected to represent her mother’s native China over the United States, her country of birth — has become the poster child for these Winter Games, her face adorning billboards across the country.
Gu is among the favorites to medal at Beijing 2022, having secured gold at the 2021 X Games in halfpipe and slopestyle, as well as bronze in big air.
However, after landing her opening qualifying jump, Gu failed on her second after losing a ski during the attempt. With the two best scores of three jumps counting toward the skiers’ qualification totals, Gu needed to land her third to have any chance of reaching Tuesday’s final.
Much to the delight of the fans in attendance — and no doubt the millions more watching across the country — she did enough with her third jump to qualify in fifth place.
“It’s a relief,” she admitted after securing her spot in the final. “The wind switched in between the first and second runs and you could see a lot of people were going slow.
“I was the fifth person to drop, but I didn’t notice it until it was too late, so my ski popped off. After that, my coach made an adjustment, so it didn’t happen in the third run. Of course, there was a lot of pressure going into it.
“I wouldn’t be satisfied not making finals, but I was just focusing on my trick. I know there are people watching me, it’s a pressure on me. But I knew I could do that trick, I’ve been doing it since I was nine, so I was just talking to myself in the right way.”
Gu has seen her popularity in China soar in the lead up to Beijing 2022 as she has been featured on magazine covers and promotional videos for the Games.
She boasts nearly 2 million followers on China’s Twitter-like social media platform Weibo and has secured multiple Chinese sponsorship deals. One headline in state-run media Xinhua dubbed her the “Snow Princess.”
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