Eileen Gu: Who is the teenager making history at the Winter Olympics?

At just 18 years of age, Eileen Gu is one of the most recognised names in winter sports.

During her first ever Olympic Games, the nerves that would usually shroud a youngster have not even caused a flinch in the eye of the trailblazing skier.

In fact, Gu was so unfazed by the magnitude of the occasion that she breezed to two record-breaking milestones in Beijing.

The teenager stole the spotlight when she became the youngest ever Olympic gold medalist in freestyle skiing. Gu won the big air event to carve her name in history — completing a stunning routine that featured a never-before-seen landed left-turn 1620.

Gu then earned silver in the slopestyle event before going to achieve a history-making third medal in the halfpipe competition.

Her sensational performance saw her clinch a second gold and third gong overall, making her the first action sports athlete to win a hat-trick of medals at a single Olympics.

Behind such inspiring performances is an equally inspiring sportswoman who has an almost unimaginable future of success ahead of her.

Gu was born in California where her Chinese-American mother Yan and her grandmother raised her.

Skiing has been in Gu’s life since very early on. With her mother working as a skiing instructor with a student-athlete background, the passion for winter sports was drip-fed through the family.

Yan enrolled her daughter in ski lessons when she was very young so Gu could reportedly keep up with her mother, who was extremely confident in the snow.

In her own words, Gu admitted her mother had “accidentally created a pro skier” and sure enough, she went on to take the world of winter sports by storm.

Despite being born in California, Gu changed her allegiance on the sporting stage in 2019.

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