Who is Olympic star Eileen Gu? Why is she competing for China?

Gold medalist Eileen Gu of China celebrates through the medal ceremony for the ladies’s freestyle snowboarding large air occasion on the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022, in Beijing.

Natacha Pisarenko, Related Press

Eileen Gu is taking the web by storm, and it could solely be the start of her profession.

What’s happening: Gu received her first gold medal Tuesday after securing the highest spot within the ladies’s large air competitors, CNN stories.

• In response, China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo crashed as individuals celebrated her victory.
• Actually, seven of the highest 10 trending matters on the platform had been about her victory.

What she stated: “That was the very best second of my life. The happiest second, day, no matter — of my life. I simply can not imagine what simply occurred,” stated Gu, per CNN.

Extra about Gu: Eileen Gu was born in America, however she competes for China on the worldwide stage.

• She was born in San Francisco in September 2003. She is the kid of an American father and a Chinese language mom, in keeping with Yahoo! Sports activities.
• “Raised by her mom and maternal grandmother, Gu maintained a deep connection to China whilst she grew up American,” Yahoo! Sports activities stories.

Per The New York Occasions, Gu’s mother, Yan, raised her daughter alone in San Francisco. The 2 would typically make summer time journeys to Beijing.

Gu introduced that she would ski for China in an Instagram submit in 2019.

• “I'm happy with my heritage, and equally happy with my American upbringings,” she stated, after which laid out her intentions.”
• “The chance to assist encourage hundreds of thousands of younger individuals the place my mother was born, through the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Video games is a once-in-a-lifetime alternative to assist to advertise the game I really like,” Gu wrote.
• “By means of snowboarding, I hope to unite individuals, promote frequent understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations. If I might help to encourage one younger lady to interrupt a boundary, my needs can have come true.”