China’s Eileen Gu secured her status as the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic history on Sunday, successfully defending her halfpipe title to claim a record-breaking sixth career medal. The 22-year-old phenom delivered a commanding 94.75-point run in the Italian Alps, surpassing Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury for the all-time freeskiing medal lead.
Gu’s victory led an 1-2 finish for China, with teammate Li Fanghui taking silver (93.00), while Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin claimed a controversial bronze (92.50). The win caps a grueling "triple threat" campaign for Gu in Milano Cortina, where she secured three medals; gold in halfpipe and silvers in big air and slopestyle, becoming the only woman to compete in all three freestyle disciplines.
While Gu’s performance was beautifully in flips and spins, the podium order sparked immediate backlash from the British camp. Atkin, the reigning world champion, appeared to dwarf her rivals in amplitude, soaring five meters above the 22-foot wall of ice; a full meter higher than Gu and nearly two meters above silver-medalist Li.
"I thought that the scoring was interesting," said Vicky Gosling, CEO of GB Snowsport. "The minimum I thought she was going to get was silver. There are men that would struggle with the height Zoe actually gets." Despite the perceived scoring snub, Atkin remained celebratory, having matched the bronze medal won by her sister, Izzy, in 2018.
Gold: Halfpipe (Beijing 2022)
Gold: Big Air (Beijing 2022)
Gold: Halfpipe (Milano Cortina 2026)
Silver: Slopestyle (Beijing 2022)
Silver: Big Air (Milano Cortina 2026)
Silver: Slopestyle (Milano Cortina 2026) Total: 6 Olympic Medals (Most in Freeskiing History)
Gu, an IMG model and Stanford student who has been a "lightning rod" for geopolitical debate since switching allegiances from the US to China in 2019, remained characteristically composed through much of the event. She revealed she had skied with a gold bow in her pocket throughout the Games, finally wearing it during the medal ceremony.
However, the "robotic" composure cracked during her post-victory press conference. Gu broke down in tears as she revealed the recent death of her grandmother, Feng Guozhen.
She was a steamship. This woman commanded life and she grabbed it by the reins and she made it into what she wanted it to be. I get to become every day the kind of person that me, at age eight, would revere. I would be obsessed with me today. That’s the biggest flex of all time.Eileen Gu
Gu likened her three-discipline schedule to a "marathon distance at a sprint pace," noting that the workload forced her to skip several halfpipe training sessions. The gamble to trust her muscle memory paid off in the final, where she soared four meters above the pipe to execute flawless technical rotations.
With six medals at just 22 years of age, Gu has redefined the limits of freestyle skiing. As she heads back to Stanford with three new pieces of hardware, the sporting world is left with the reality of an athlete who has successfully bent the Olympic stage to her will for two consecutive cycles.