Fanfare, controversy swirls around China's Gu on eve of debut

BEIJING : U.S.-born Chinese skier Eileen Gu's highly-anticipated Winter Olympics sporting debut has attracted a surge of praise and attention from Chinese fans and state media but also fresh uncomfortable questions in the country over her nationality.

The 18-year-old fashion model and incoming Stanford University student has since early on been considered Team China's best known winter athlete.

Still, the fanfare around Gu has intensified since she arrived in Beijing in late January thanks to a mix of local media coverage and her own savvy social media use.

"Freestyle ski star Gu Ailing a super idol among Chinese young people for representing true spirit of sport," nationalist tabloid Global Times wrote in a headline on Thursday which referred to her Chinese name.

Gu, who first competed for China aged 15 and is a favourite to win Olympic gold, is competing in three freestyle disciplines at the Games - halfpipe, Big Air and slopestyle.

Her first event is scheduled to be the women's freeski Big Air qualifying session on Monday.

Gu's front row spot in the Chinese athletes delegation at the opening ceremony to her choice of a dumpling meal when she arrived in Beijing are among Gu-related topics that have trended heavily on Chinese social media in recent weeks.

Her following on China's Weibo platform has ballooned by hundreds of thousands to 1.7 million users in a month.

Chinese media have also focused on her fluent Mandarin, Eurasian features - Gu was born to a Chinese mother and American father - proud embrace of Chinese culture and academic prowess as reasons for her popularity with China's public.

"Add oil, big sister!," said one of close to 5,000 comments left on her latest post about her appearance at the opening ceremony on