When to watch Ailing (Eileen) Gu freeski next after Beijing 2022 medals
The 18-year-old is keen to add to her successes, which include two freestyle skiing golds and one silver at Beijing 2022. What's left in her sporting diary for the year ahead?
Freestyle Skiing
Ailing (Eileen) Gu was one of the stars of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, after winning two gold medals and one silver for host nation People's Republic of China.
Aged just 18, thoughts are already turning to what else this extraordinary skier can achieve in the coming years.
There isn’t much that Gu hasn’t won in the world of freestyle skiing, as she now possesses a pair of Olympic, Youth Olympic, World Championship and Winter X Games gold medals.
However, as snowboarders like Shaun White and Chloe Kim both demonstrate, the true mark of a sporting great is the ability to keep winning time and time again, raising the bar ever higher.
Over the coming months, Gu will have the opportunity to add to her haul of medals - and further cement her freestyle legacy. Here is where we can next expect to see the Chinese superstar compete.
March’s freeski World Cup double-header
While the International Ski Federation (FIS) calendar is packed with an array of freestyle skiing events around the world, we probably won’t see Gu return to the slopes at the first possible opportunity. Instead, she’ll most likely be back for the next World Cup event, in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Taking place on the 3rd March, it will be swiftly followed by another World Cup round the following weekend, this time in Tignes, France. Both events will only feature Slopestyle competitions, with Halfpipe and Big Air not returning until next season.
No halfpipe events are on the horizon
Of the three Freeski events Gu competes in, halfpipe is unquestionably her strongest – as we saw once again in Beijing. In the process of taking Olympic women's halfpipe gold, she was the only athlete to score over 91, which she achieved twice.
By comparison, Gu's margin of victory in a stong big air Olympic final earlier this month was slim, and she missed out on the top step of the podium in the Slopestyle event. Her World Cup record tells a similar story, with five of her eight career wins coming in the Halfpipe.
Gu last competed in a World Cup event last month at Mammoth Mountain in the US. There, the San Francisco-native took home a gold in the Halfpipe, and a silver in Slopestyle, underlining her fine form heading into the Olympics.
The next FIS freeski and snowboard world championships are due to take place in the middle of the 2022/23 World Cup season, from 25 January to 5 February 2023 in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Stepping away from the sport
In light of her fame and popularity, it is of course possible that Chinese star Gu won’t return to the sport straight away. With a successful modelling career and over 1.4 million Instagram followers, she is set to be in high demand over the coming months away from the slopes.
Further to this, NBC reports that Gu will begin studying at Stanford University in the fall of this year, which will almost certainly impact her skiing career.
To watch all of Eileen Gu’s sensational highlights from Beijing 2022, click here (territorial restrictions apply).