Who is Beijing Winter Olympics gold medallist Eileen Gu and why the fascination?

In China, her name is GU Ailing. In the United States, it is Eileen Gu. In the Olympics, it translates to big ticket item.

She's the American-born athlete representing China, an 18-year-old who refers to herself as American when she's in America and Chinese when she's in China. That's dynamite in the current politically charged climate engulfing US-China relations.

The freestyle skier competing in her first Olympics is also a straight 'A' student heading to Stanford in September, with an international modelling contract and endorsements currently worth around $US22 million ($30.8 million) a year.

Dubbed the 'Snow Princess', you can't quite escape her, even when she's not competing. She is a brand ambassador for several of the major sponsors at the Beijing Winter Olympics, with her face adorning what seems like every other billboard.

While born and raised in San Francisco, Gu decided in 2019 to compete for her mother's country of birth, China, which seemed logical given her connections to her grandparents in Beijing and a home where she spent significant portions of each year while growing up.

Since then, she has won two Youth Olympic Games gold medals, two world championships, two X-games golds and is on her way to an Olympic medal collection.

But the question most asked concerns who she 'really' is, as though somehow she cannot be both Chinese and American, that she doesn't have the right to call both home.

«I grew up spending 25-30 per cent of every year in China,» Gu explained.

«As you guys (media) all know now from me answering questions, I am fluent in Mandarin and English, I am fluent culturally in both, I have family coming from Beijing, my mum grew up in Beijing — actually… there is a tower here you can see from the top