US-Born Skier, Victoria's Secret Model Disses America and Is Competing for China at Olympics
“That was the best moment of my life. The happiest moment, day, whatever — of my life. I just cannot believe what just happened,” gushed Eileen Gu, 18, after winning the gold in the women’s big air competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
CNN reports that fans were so ecstatic over Gu’s victory, they temporarily crashed Chinese social media website Weibo.
After an early fall, Gu managed to finish with a score of 188.25 topping France’s Tess Ledeux by a whisker. Her final tally was 187.50, according to CNN.
Pardon us for being somewhat less excited about Gu’s win.
The American born and raised Gu, known in Olympic circles as “The Snow Princess,” is not representing Team USA, but China, the place of her mother’s birth.
Olympics.com writes that “Gu may be the most talented teenager in the world.” Not only is she an elite athlete, but her academic brilliance has “plac[ed] her in the 99th percentile of American students.”
It’s only natural that she will be attending Stanford University in September.
Not only that, but her exceptional beauty has landed her modeling gigs with Louis Vuitton and Victoria’s Secret.
Where does a girl find the time?
At any rate, the teenage phenom, announced that she would be representing China in the Olympics in a 2019 Instagram post.
“I have decided to compete for China in the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics,” Gu wrote. “This was an incredibly tough decision for me to make. I am extremely thankful for U.S. Ski & Snowboard and the Chinese Ski Association for having the vision and belief in me to make my dreams come true.”
“I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringing. The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love. Through skiing, I hope to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations. If I can help to inspire one young girl to break a boundary, my wishes will have come true.”
Gu’s current citizenship status is uncertain. According to CNN, “Though she switched to compete for China, it’s unclear whether she renounced her American citizenship — usually a requirement for Chinese naturalization, since the country does not allow dual citizenship. Gu has never publicly commented on the status of her American citizenship, though an article on the official Olympic site referred to her ‘dual nationality’ in January.”
“At a news conference after her win on Tuesday, reporters asked Gu several times if she was still a U.S. citizen. She dodged answering each time, saying only that she felt American in the U.S. and Chinese in China.”
Along with Mike Tirico, the freestyle skiing announcers are ready to canonize Gu and how great she is for China and the rest of the world.
What would be great is if she spoke out against the genocide and human rights violations going on in China. #GenocideGames #Olympics
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 8, 2022
Also, Eileen Gu doesn’t deserve a scintilla of support in the U.S. Yes, her roots are in China, but she willingly chose to give up her citizenship to represent a genocidal regime in the #GenocideGames, which means she’s backing concentration camps. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 8, 2022
Americans were baffled when the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2022 Games to China in the first place.
Although it was a small gesture, the Biden administration announced a diplomatic boycott of the Games in December citing China’s “egregious human rights abuses and atrocities” against the Uyghur population.
Many of us consider Gu’s decision to join China’s team to be a slap in the face to America.
In her 2019 statement, Gu speaks of “the opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born.”
How much more could she have used her platform to draw attention to the atrocities being committed against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Northwest China’s Xinjiang region?
Instead of calling out China’s abuses, which could have been powerful, Gu has pledged allegiance to China and essentially dissed America.
The Daily Wire spoke to a former Winter X Games gold medalist for the USA women’s team, Jen Hudak. She said, “It is not my place to judge, but Eileen is from California, not from China, and her decision [to ski for China] seems opportunistic. I can’t speak to what Eileen’s Chinese heritage means to her, and she has every right to do what she believes is best for her career.”
Hudak hit the nail on the head. Gu’s decision is opportunistic.
The Daily Wire cited a Jan. 2020 interview Gu’s agent, Tom Yaps, gave to the Associated Press. Asked if his client’s decision had been difficult, Yaps replied, “‘Difficult’ is the wrong word, but she weighed everything very heavily. At the end of the day, she really feels she can make an impact in these young women’s lives. She looked around and said, ‘There are so many brilliant role models in the U.S. already,’ and she felt her voice could really make an impact over there.”
Come on Tom. Let’s get real. In which role could Gu have made a greater impact? Providing a voice for a population that is the target of an ongoing genocide by the Chinese government or inspiring Chinese teenagers to “break a boundary”?
Gu made the choice she believed would create the best opportunity for her. And that’s fine.
Just don’t try to position it as an altruistic decision.
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