If Eileen Gu seems to have it all, it’s because she does

Sheer physical talent does not solely define Olympic heroes. The ‘star’ formula is also a blend of resolve in the face of setbacks, emotional control, charm, an absorbing backstory, sponsorship success, brand-name recognition, language eloquence, and – yes – glamour and good looks.

At Milan Cortina, a few athletes check many or most of the boxes, none more so than Eileen Gu, the American-Chinese superstar freestyle skier who made her Milan Cortina Olympic debut on Monday. By then, fever for Lindsey Vonn, who crashed out of the women’s downhill in Cortina on Sunday, had been quickly replaced by fever for Gu in Livigno.

Gu won silver in the freestyle slopestyle event on a sunny afternoon, a disappointment for her but more than enough to boost her already-formidable fame. The second-place finish – Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud took gold and bronze went to Canada’s Megan Oldham – took Gu’s lifetime Olympic medal tally to four. Not bad for a 22-year-old.

If she seems to have it all, it’s because she does: Talent, medals galore, youth, wealth, fame, telegenic good looks, and a formidable drive and passion for winning that has made her an inspiration among millions of young women and men – mostly women – all over the world.

A woman friend of mine, who has a minor obsession with Gu, told me that Gu seems so perfect that she can’t possibly be real. “She is likely a creation of China’s secret AI and a 3D printer,” she told me with a mix of respect and envy.

Winter Olympics 2026: 10 athletes from around the world to watch at the Milan Cortina Games

Remember the quote attributed to Gore Vidal?

He said, “It is not enough that I succeed; others must also fail.” Certainly, there are few Gu watchers who think she has had more than enough success for a dozen lifetimes and that it’s time for her to crash, so to speak. But no one in Livigno would fit into that nasty category – they paid big bucks to see her.

The audience was enraptured by the young woman and wanted her to win a fourth Olympic medal. Oldham’s mother, Bonnie, certainly wanted her daughter to take the top prize but wished Gu well. “You can’t help but love her,” she told me just ahead of the slopestyle race. “But my query is this: I wonder whether the money will overtake her love of the sport.”

Good question. Gu is one of the richest athletes on the planet even though she is, by professional sports standards, a mere toddler. Forbes magazine recently put her earnings in 2025 alone at US$23.1-million. You read that right – 2025 alone. That put her in fourth spot globally among female athletes, behind the tennis stars Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek.

Almost none of her earnings come from ‘on court’ prize money from competitions. She got rich from ‘off court’ income, that is, a flurry of sponsorships made possible by her soaring commercial power, not just among kids, but also among rich consumers who buy expensive cars and jewelry.

She is an IMG model and has strolled the runway for global brands such as Victoria’s Secret and Louis Vuitton. She has also been paid gorgeously by Tiffany, Porsche, Red Bull, Bank of China and North Face.

She has seven million followers on Weibo, a Chinese social-media platform, 2.1-million Instagram followers and has landed on the cover of Time, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Marie Claire and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazines. There is probably no more famous woman athlete her age on the planet. Teenagers who cannot identify some of the world’s most successful woman politicians and and institutional officials – Ursula von der Leyen, Christine Lagarde and Giorgia Meloni, among them – know who Gu is.

Gu’s backstory makes her all the more fascinating to them. In brief – a library of books will no doubt be published about her – she was born in San Francisco to Yan Gu, a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the U.S., and a father who has never been identified. Gu began skiing at three years old and quickly proved be a sporting prodigy. She joined a freestyle team in California at 8 and won her first national championship a year later.

Gu would spend summers in Beijing, where she became fluent in Mandarin. She was admitted to Stanford University, her mother’s alma mater, to study international relations.

Choosing to compete for China, not the U.S., added to her fame – and infamy among some Americans. She revealed she would compete for China in 2019, when she was 15, using Instagram to reveal her “incredibly tough decision.” She never fully explained why she chose China, though she clearly identifies as Chinese as much as she does American. Her move, of course, was condemned by the America-firsters at Fox News and elsewhere (China does not allow dual citizenship, but there is no indication she has relinquished her American one).

Gu has reached the degree of wealth already where she would have trouble even spending the interest on her fortune, a nice problem to have. She has given little indication what she wants to do with her fortune, or even her career; to be fair, the baby millionaire is still a student.

Milan Cortina put her under enormous pressure and proved that she was not, after all, made by the gods. She fell on her final run of three and settled for silver, denying her an upgrade from the Beijing Games. “The Olympics always come with this kind of pressure. It’s really different from any other competition,” she said after her podium appearance.

She also admitted to competing “with the weight of two countries on my shoulders.”

The question is whether she has peaked and, if so, can she keep the money machine rolling – the podium has been the key to her financial success. Gu is not one to give up; she may take the view that building wealth is merely the pleasant byproduct of indulging her killer competitive instincts.

Click here to read article