Eileen Gu is the poster child for a new type of Chinese athlete - but one wrong move could send her tumbling

At this year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, the face of China’s sporting dreams is undeniably American.

Freestyle skier Eileen Gu’s rise to the top has been meteoric - and her popularity in China has exploded in the lead-up to the Games.

“Snow princess Gu Ailing set to shine at home Olympics,” read one headline in state-run media Xinhua, referring to Gu by her Chinese name.

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But Gu, 18, has another home: the United States, where she was born to a Chinese mother and American father, and where she first discovered her love for the sport.

In 2015, just a few months after she reached her first World Cup podium, the San Francisco native announced she was switching to compete for China instead of the US.

It’s a controversial decision that thrust her firmly into the spotlight.

“This was an incredibly tough decision for me to make,” she wrote in an Instagram post at the time.

“I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings.”

She has since become a household name in China.

Walk down the street and you’ll see her face splashed across billboards and magazine covers.

Promotional videos ahead of the Olympics show Gu performing tricks midair and running on the Great Wall.

She has nearly 2 million followers on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, as well as multiple Chinese sponsors, brand deals, and documentary teams following her every movement.

But behind her success is the heavy pressure of being both Chinese and American at a time of intense geopolitical tensions; of representing her mother’s homeland, a country under fire in the West for alleged human rights abuses; and of trying to be an athlete and nothing more during