By adorning herself with gold on Tuesday, February 8, in freestyle skiing, the Chinese Eileen Gu immediately became a star in the eyes of her compatriots. A “icon” even, according to the propaganda. Because she is the first to bring the country Olympic gold in a snow event. But also and above all because of her background: Eileen Gu – Gu Ailing in Chinese – was born in the United States to a Chinese mother and an American father before opting for Chinese nationality in June 2019.
The athlete’s performance drew such a flurry of comments from Chinese fans on the Weibo micro-messaging platform that it caused the site to temporarily go down. It must be said that the young 18-year-old woman has an almost ideal CV: studies in the United States, perfectly bilingual, she also plays the piano. She even participated, during her holidays in China, in the Mathematics Olympiads. The embodiment of the Chinese dream.
The Department of Transportation even said it had written to Eileen’s grandmother, a retired engineer, congratulating her for traveling to the United States to care for her granddaughter when she he was a child. The identity of Eileen Gu’s father has not been revealed, but her mother raised her alone, which makes the story even more fascinating in a still very conservative China.
Already the face of many international brands in China, Eileen Gu could see her rating rise even further after these Games. To the title she won in big air – a ski event which consists of jumping onto a springboard to perform an acrobatic figure – she could also add medals in two events where she will be one of the main favourites: in slopestyle (where you have to slide down a track equipped with springboards, bumps and metal ramps), on February 13 and 14, then in halfpipe (acrobatic figures to be performed in a half-cylinder of snow), February 17 and 18.
China, his “homeland”
If Eileen Gu appears as the symbol of an elite at ease on each side of the Pacific – “I feel American in the United States and Chinese in China”, the girl keeps repeating – she was called a traitor by some Americans. And she stubbornly refuses to say whether or not she still has a US passport. In principle not, since China prohibits dual nationality. But would there be exceptions? If the Chinese discovered that Eileen Gu had managed to keep her American nationality, the tide could very quickly turn.
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