With all eyes on the American-born Chinese freestyle skiing phenom at the 2022 Olympics, Eileen Gu knew she needed to go big if she wanted to go home with the gold in her first event, big air.
So on her final run, she made the decision to attempt a double cork 1620, 4 1/2 spins in the air while rotating twice off axis—a stunt she’d never actually tried in practice.
“My whole thing was, it’s all upside,” she explained to Time in January 2026. “Because if I land, I will win the Olympics. If I don’t land, then I get to make history as the first person to ever try this trick in such a situation. It’s a decision that I would be super proud of and live with forever.”
And spinning her way to that first gold, plus another in half pipe and a second-place finish in slopestyle was just the, uh, jumping off point for the Stanford international relations student.
With 20 World Cup titles, she told Time, “The numbers say that I’m, competitively the best free skier that’s ever lived.”
And trust that she’s run the data. While she admits in her sport, “it’s not too cool to try hard,” she’s “super unapologetic” about being all in, studying the precise momentum and axis rotation required to land each trick. “That’s the fun part for me,” she explained. “It’s super addicting. I’m totally obsessed with it.”
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