‘Mentally tired’ Eileen Gu claims silver as Mathilde Gremaud roars back for gold

Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud soared to gold in the Olympic women’s freeski slopestyle final after holding off another last-gasp charge by Eileen Gu, the American-born emerging superstar representing China who settled for silver by the narrowest of margins but stayed on course for a historic treble at the Beijing Games.

The 22-year-old Gremaud, who snuck into the final with the 12th-highest score in qualifying and scored a meagre 1.00 on her first of three runs in Tuesday’s final after losing a ski, roared back with an 86.56 on her second of three runs to leapfrog the gaggle of favourites atop the leaderboard.

Gu was in eighth place after taking a tumble on her second run, but the San Francisco-born freestyler competing for her mother’s home nation of China delivered under pressure once again, putting down a clean, controlled final run for a score of 86.23 – a scant 0.33 points behind Gremaud – to add a silver medal to her big air gold from last week.

Kelly Sildaru took home bronze, becoming the first athlete from Estonia to win an Olympic medal in freestyle skiing on a bitterly cold -22C (-7F) morning in the mountain village of Taizicheng roughly 120km northwest of Beijing.

“It really came down to the last run again,” Gu said. “I don’t know why I keep doing it to myself. It doesn’t make it easy for myself. It certainly doesn’t make it easy for my coaches and my mom has a heart attack every day. It’s definitely not the easiest but I’m happy that I was able to push through and turn that pressure into fuel and it feels so, so good.”

Eleven entrants competed in the three-run final on Tuesday with the best score counting towards their final position, the frigid conditions further complicating their attempts down the 665m