LIVIGNO, Italy, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Eileen Gu on Tuesday said she was entering her second Olympics with new-found love and a different approach to her sport after feeling stuck in recent years.
Gu acknowledged that the last year had been marred by injuries, limited training time and the demands of full‑time study, leaving her to "live contest to contest".
"Now I feel this renewed sense of infatuation with skiing itself, with competing for the sake of sportsmanship and Olympic values," she wrote in a long
post on Instagram under pictures portraying her in the northern Italian town of Livigno, where women's freestyle races will start on February 7.
"No matter what results will follow, I am here to have the most fun and be fully present in this experience," she added.
The 22-year-old Gu, who balances her professional training with studies at Stanford as well as a high‑profile modelling and sponsorship portfolio, said the change in mindset started after the Secret Garden World Cup, held in Zhangjiakou, China in December.
The double Olympic champion became the first athlete to win three freestyle skiing medals at a single Games in Beijing in 2022 with gold in big air and halfpipe, and silver in slopestyle.
Born in San Francisco to an American father and Chinese mother, the skier represented the U.S. early in her career before deciding, in 2019, to compete for China, ahead of her Olympic debut in 2022 at the Beijing Games.
Although her decision to continue representing China remains controversial, she frames it as a personal mission to grow freestyle skiing in China, where interest in winter sports has surged since her triumph in Beijing.
(Reporting by Giulia Segreti in Livigno, editing by Ed Osmond)
