Eileen Gu

Early life and education Eileen Gu was born on September 3, 2003, in San Francisco, California, United States. Her mother, Yan Gu , is a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the United States. Her father is American and a Harvard University graduate. Her maternal grandfather was the chief electrical engineer of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China.

Yan studied chemistry and biochemistry and was a member of the short-track speed skating team at Peking University in the 1980s. After moving to the United States, she earned a master's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Auburn University and an MBA at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Yan raised her daughter as a single mother in San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood.

Gu attended primary and middle school at the Katherine Delmar Burke School and went to high school at San Francisco University High. She attended a mathematics cram school during her summers in Beijing and scored 1580 out of 1600 on the SAT. While at Stanford, she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and studied abroad at the University of Oxford's Magdalen College. An international relations major, Gu took time off in the 2025–26 academic year to prepare for the 2026 Winter Olympics. In June 2026, Gu graduated from Stanford University.

Sports career

Gu's first run at Women's Freeski Big Air Qualification, 2022 OlympicsIn 2021, Gu became the first woman to land a forward double cork 1440 in competition history.

Coaches and training Gu's coaches have included Jamie Melton, head coach of the Chinese National Slopestyle and Big Air Training Team for the 2022 Winter Olympics, and Brad Prosser, who met Gu when she was ten. In 2018, he became the technical coach guide to the Chinese national team for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Her personal coach for the 2022 Olympics was Misra Noto Torniainen, the former coach of the Swiss freeski team. Torniainen coached Olympic medalists Sarah Höfflin and Mathilde Gremaud for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

In early 2025, the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau released a public budget about allocating US$6.6 million for the training of Gu and fellow US-born athlete Zhu Yi ahead of the 2026 Milan games though later their names were removed from the document and articles on the topic were censored on several Chinese websites. The total payment from Beijing's sports bureau for Gu and Zhu was $14 million over the past three years prior to the 2026 games.

Gu withdrew from the 2023 Winter X Games due to a heavy crash in training where she injured her knee.

At the 2024 Winter X Games, Gu won gold in SuperPipe despite injuring her right hip during the X Games Slopestyle training. She wrote "Pain is Temporary" on her hand, and showed it to the cameras during the finals. Due to the pain, she did not participate in Slopestyle.

World Championships

Gu competed at the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships 2021, winning two gold medals in Freeski Halfpipe and Freeski Slopestyle and a bronze medal in Freeski Big Air. Gu became the first freeskier to win two golds at the FIS Freeski World Championship. She competed without poles for the first time due to a broken hand, having fractured a finger and tearing the UCL in her thumb. Gu landed a double cork 1620, her first attempt in competition. She was the second woman to land the trick and the first woman to land a left-turn 1620; Tess Ledeux first successfully completed a double cork 1620 on 21 January 2022, at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado, Gu landed it again in her first run of the big air final at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Gu won the silver medal in the slopestyle event. She won a second gold medal in the women's freeski halfpipe competition, becoming the first freestyle skier to win three medals at a Winter Olympics. She was awarded the Best Breakthrough Athlete and Best Female Action Sports Athlete ESPY Awards at the 2022 ESPY Awards.

World Cup results

Gu ended the 2021–22 World Cup season with a perfect record in women's halfpipe, taking her first career crystal globe and becoming the first freestyle skier to win four consecutive World Cup competitions. She won a second crystal globe during the same season, placing first in park and pipe overall.

All results are sourced from the International Ski Federation.

8 wins: 5 Halfpipe, 2 Slopestyle, 1 Big Air 12 podiums: 6 Halfpipe, 5 Slopestyle, 1 Big Air

Results current through 1 February 2022.

2026 Winter Olympics

At the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Eileen Gu competed in all three women's freestyle skiing disciplines: slopestyle, big air, and the freeski halfpipe, medaling in each. Gu secured silver medals in both slopestyle and big air, and won the gold medal in the halfpipe, defending her title from the 2022 Winter Olympics. Alongside Russian cross-country skier Lyubov Yegorova, Gu became the second athlete in history to earn either gold or silver in each of their first six individual Winter Olympic events. She announced the change on Weibo The Chinese Consulate General in New York told BBC News that Gu would need to be naturalized or gain permanent residency status in China to compete for its team; in the same article, it was reported that China's Ministry of Justice in 2020 broadened rules for foreigners, allowing people who achieved international recognition in sport, science, culture and other fields to obtain permanent residency. The International Olympic Committee requires that any competitor in the Olympic Games must be a national of the country which they are representing. The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2026 that the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau was set to pay Gu and another athlete a combined $6.6 million in training funds over a three-year period. In 2022, in an interview with the South China Morning Post, she said: "My appearance and the way I speak are completely American. No one can deny that I am American. When I go to China, no one can deny that I am Chinese because I speak fluent Chinese, am familiar with the culture here, and fully identify as Chinese." Following her gold medal victory in the halfpipe on 22 February 2026, Gu addressed the persistent scrutiny regarding her passports, noting that the perception of her decision is often affected by the geopolitical "rivalry" between the two nations.

Political positions Gu has spoken out in the United States against anti-Asian racism and publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement and the right to legal access to abortion. Critics accused her of being disloyal for representing China and for declining to comment on Chinese government policies, including allegations of human rights abuses against Uyghurs.

Gu is represented by IMG Models. She has appeared on the covers of magazines such as the Chinese editions of Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan, GQ, Marie Claire, V, L'Officiel, and Vogue. Gu has been featured in campaigns for Western luxury brands including Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. and is a brand ambassador for IWC Schaffhausen and TCL Electronics.

It was reported that she earned over US$30 million in endorsements and advertising contracts in 2021 alone. According to media reports, her average fee per endorsement increased from $1 million in 2021 to $2 to $2.5 million in 2022. In 2023, Forbes listed Gu as the second-highest paid female athlete in the world. In 2024, she was the world's third-highest paid female athlete.

In 2002, a year before Gu was born, Gu Yan's sister Gu Ling died in a car crash. Gu's mother decided to name her , literally translating to "Love Ling" and anglicized as "Eileen", in her sister's honor.

Gu plays the piano as a hobby.

Gu's grandmother, Feng Guozhen, died during the 2026 Olympics. Gu learned of her grandmother's passing shortly after winning the gold medal in the women's halfpipe and spoke emotionally about her influence on her life and career at her post‑event press conference.

Gu has stated that her broad purpose from international attention is to have "global beneficial impact" through her fashion and skiing. One estimate from the Chinese government is that more than 300 million people began participation in ice and snow sports since the 2022 Winter Olympics when Gu first competed.