Home favourite Eileen Gu completes golden Games with victory in women's half-pipe at Beijing Winter Olympics

Eileen Gu has backed up extraordinary expectations heaped upon her heading into these Winter Olympics by dominating the freestyle skiing half-pipe to claim her third medal and second gold of the Games.

In typically sublime form on the pipe in Zhangjiakou, the 18-year-old sensation was shrugging aside the pressure that comes from competing at a home Olympics.

«The overriding emotion is just this deep-seated sense of gratitude and resolution, just like this all coming together, years and years in the making and it's like letting out a deep breath,» Gu told the Olympic Information Service.

«I feel exhausted. I mean, God, from Opening Ceremony until now I've been skiing every single day so I'm really tired, but I feel at peace. I feel grateful. I feel passionate, and I feel proud.

»It has been two straight weeks of the most-intense highs and lows I've ever experienced in my life.

«It has changed my life forever.»

Her score of 93.25 was the best of anyone in the first round and would have been enough to claim gold all on its own.

Gu, of course, was not to know that, so sent down an even better run of 95.25 in her second go, extending her lead and making the third run a mere formality.

Her closest rivals — Canadians Cassie Sharpe and Rachael Kerker — could not match her score in their final runs, settling for silver and bronze respectively.

That meant Gu was able to use her final run as a victory lap, with her grandmother — someone Gu has credited as being a huge inspiration in her life — watching her compete in the crowd for the first time.

«I've never taken a victory lap before in my entire life, so I felt like, 'You know what, last event at the Olympics, it feels like I finally deserve it',» she said.

«I'm really happy.»

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