Gu told reporters in Livigno she was not distracted nor offended by Vance’s comments, but responded facetiously when it was put to her that Vance had suggested she picked the wrong flag to compete under.
“I’m flattered,” Gu said. “Thanks, JD. That’s sweet.”
Others on the MAGA right have been far more vitriolic towards her, such as Republican congressman Andy Ogles, who posted on X: “Eileen Gu is a US-born skier who is working for Communist China, a regime that wants to destroy our country. There must be consequences for those who betray the United States and support our adversaries.”
Meanwhile, former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, a long-time China critic, has described her as a “traitor” and accused her of “disappearing” whenever the topic of human rights comes up.
Asked if she felt like a punching bag for a certain strand of US politics, Gu said: “I do.”
“So many athletes compete for a different country, including in this field. So many. People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity and they just hate China.
Eileen Gu soars during the women’s freeski halfpipe qualifications on Thursday.Credit: AP
“And also because I win. If I wasn’t doing well, people probably wouldn’t care as much.
“There’s a saying in Chinese: you can’t wake someone who’s pretending to be asleep. Which just means, like, if someone is so convicted in their beliefs … I will never be able to justify or explain myself [to them].
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“I have said I do what I do because I want to inspire the next generation of young women. I’ve said this since I was 10. No one was paying me when I was 10. No country wanted me to speak for them when I was 10. I have had the same principles since I was literally prepubescent.
“If people don’t believe me, at a certain point, that’s just on them.”
Gu’s status as a political lightning rod has come at the cost of her physical safety as she revealed last week, that she was assaulted on campus last year at Stanford University, where she studies, because she opted to compete for China.
She went on to list several athletes at the Winter Olympics who were also competing for countries that are different to the ones where they were born or where they grew up – not to say that people should “hate on them” too, but to illustrate how they were not receiving the same treatment.
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“The problem is not about what people think it’s about,” she said.
“I just wish that people would adopt the Olympic spirit more. It’s about bringing people together. It’s about using sport as a spirit of communication. And if they want to focus on their own things, like, they just have a sad little life. I don’t know what to say.”
The Winter Olympic Games is broadcast on the Nine Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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