Whoever wins the freestyle big air ski competition at the Beijing Games next month will make history as the inaugural gold medalists of a discipline making its Olympic debut.
But for U.S.-born Chinese skier Eileen Gu the stakes are even higher. This will be her first chance to win an Olympic gold for China, a country she switched to represent in 2019.
Since then, Gu, born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese mother, has quickly gained popularity in China and become a darling for the local media and Chinese brands.