OLYMPICS: Freestyle skiing-China's Gu has nothing to prove at Milano Cortina

LIVIGNO, Italy — Chinese freestyle skier Eileen Gu, already a two-time gold medalist and silver medalist from her first Winter Olympics, heads into the Milano Cortina Games with nothing left to prove.

At Beijing 2022, Gu made history by becoming the first freestyle skier to win three Olympic medals at a single Games, taking gold in big air and halfpipe, along with silver in slopestyle.

“I don’t have anything left to prove,” Gu told Reuters on Thursday, on the eve of the opening ceremony. “I’ve won more World Cups than any freestyle skier ever, male or female. I am currently tied for most Olympic medals. I am the youngest freestyle Olympic gold medalist. I am the only freestyle skier to win three medals at a single Olympics.”

The 22-year-old is a major contender in all three disciplines in Livigno, a ski town in northern Italy where the freestyle skiing events begin on Saturday.

American-born Gu, who competes for her mother’s nation, China, said her second Olympics feels different because she is now doing what she truly wants.

“Before, I think I was doing what I knew how to do. Now I’m doing what I want to do,” she said.

This renewed freedom has helped Gu rediscover her love for the sport after feeling stuck in recent years.

“This past season, especially leading up to the Olympics, it has been so wonderful to fall back in love with this sport,” she added. “When I say I’m falling back in love with skiing, I think it’s also falling back in love with myself and learning to trust myself again.”

Gu made headlines in Beijing when she won big air gold on her final run after landing the first-ever left-side double cork 1620 by a female skier—a trick that has yet to be replicated. Asked if she had any new tricks ready for Livigno, she remained coy but promising.

“Hopefully new tricks … I’m here to do my very best. I think this is the stage to push myself if I can do so safely and if I have the capacity to do so,” she said.

Even as a veteran competing in her second Winter Olympics, Gu said each Games still feels fresh.

“I always say that every Olympics feels like the first time. Even though this is my second Olympics, it’s my ‘first’ second Olympics. And I hope that when I go to my third, it will also feel like my ‘first’ third Olympics.”

-Reporting by Kurt Michael Hall and Joyce Zhou; Editing by Ken Ferris/Reuters