Eileen Gu soars to hat-trick of medals at Beijing Games with gold in freeski halfpipe

This time Eileen Gu didn’t leave things late. After her first two events at the Winter Games came down to nail-biting finishes, the emerging American-born superstar representing China lay waste to all-comers in the Olympic freeski halfpipe final, adding to her big air gold and slopestyle silver to complete an unprecedented hat-trick of medals in the mountains northwest of Beijing.

The 18-year-old soared into history on Friday morning in becoming the first action-sports athlete to win three medals at a single Olympics, delivering on years of hype that intensified in the months leading up to the Beijing Games and grew to deafening levels over the past week-and-a-half as her culture-straddling origin story has become the subject of intense public debate on both sides of the Pacific.

Gu pumped her fist after putting down a formidable score of 93.25 on her opening run that none of her rivals would approach, then notched up the difficulty and amplitude on her second trip for a 95.25, creating even more distance atop the leaderboard as hordes of bundled-up spectators and volunteers chanted her name at the bottom of the course.

With her second Olympic title in hand after no one came within four and a half points of her benchmark, a beaming Gu made a casual trip down the Secret Garden halfpipe on her final run before gliding into the finish area and mobbing her fellow medalists in celebration.

“It has been two straight weeks of the most intense highs and lows I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Gu said. “It has changed my life forever. The second I landed the last 16 in big air I knew my life was never going to be the same. Even then I would have never imagined that I’d walk away with another silver and another gold.”

A pair of