BEIJING – When Chinese-American athlete Eileen Gu won an Olympic gold medal in the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final on Feb 22, public reactions from the United States and China were strikingly different. 

While the Chinese cheered her victory – which made her the most decorated freestyle skier in history with six Olympic medals – Americans branded her a sell-out.

Gu’s mother is from Beijing and her father is American. The 22-year-old, an international relations major at Stanford University, speaks fluent Mandarin. She was born and raised in the US but opted, controversially, to represent China in 2019. 

On Feb 23, Gu’s photo was published on the front page of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China’s official newspaper, with the headline “China team records best results at an overseas Winter Olympics”. 

In China, her gravity-defying feats have made her a winter sports icon, with Beijing hoping she can help boost participation and interest in winter sports, a field in which China has traditionally lagged behind other major sporting nations. 

Her stock skyrocketed when she won two golds and a silver for China at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. 

Gu has 15.9 million followers on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and is affectionately called “frog princess”, a reference to the green helmet she trained with as a child. 

Most of her estimated annual income of US$23 million (S$29.1 million) comes from commercial deals related to China, such as one with Anta, China’s leading sportswear brand.

Though she primarily grew up in the US, Chinese national media calls her “Chinese youth”. A Xinhua interview published on Feb 9 said that “her identity has become increasingly clear”, quoting Gu as saying that she represents China and Chinese skiing. 

In the US, on the other hand, online abuse appears to have grown. Netizens say that Gu turned towards China for commercial reasons, playing up her Chinese heritage to gain favour with the vast Chinese market. 

Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom, who has been critical of China, called Gu a “traitor”. On Reddit, on a thread asking why non-Chinese people hate Gu, one user wrote: “It’s clear as day she is only defending China for the money.”

Even US Vice-President J.D. Vance has weighed in on this.

On Feb 17, when asked about Gu on Fox News, he said that someone who grew up and benefited from American freedoms and education should compete with their national team. 

Asked to respond to Mr Vance’s comments, Gu said that the perception of China in the US has affected how people see her decision to join the Chinese team. 

“Many athletes compete for a different country (than the one where they were born). People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they just hate China,” Gu said. 

The divisive opinions that have dogged Gu for years reflect how she must walk an increasingly difficult tightrope to maintain her brand, as a top athlete whose identity straddles two major countries that are more rivals than partners.

At the Milan Cortina Games, Gu wore her Chinese roots on her sleeves. Her porcelain-inspired white and blue winter jacket with a dragon motif was a collaboration with Anta. In a video she posted on Chinese social media, she is seen eating stir-fried tomato with scrambled eggs, a common household dish in China. 

Her choice to embrace Chinese support means she will continue to face criticisms that she is two-faced, chief among them the uncomfortable question of her dual nationality. 

Gu is an American citizen as she was born in California, and there are no public records showing she has given that up. In 2019, when she was 15, she took up Chinese citizenship to compete for China. 

By law, China does not recognise dual citizenship.

While there are murmurs of discontent in China about her citizenship status, there is general acknowledgement that she has brought the country glory on a global stage.

In addition, Gu has been media-savvy and avoided commenting on issues deemed sensitive in China, such as on the treatment of the Uighur minority in the Xinjiang autonomous region.

But in American eyes, this has been seen as pandering to Beijing while enjoying American freedoms. 

A now-deleted disclosure by the Beijing municipal sports bureau that she and another Chinese athlete were paid 48 million yuan (S$8.84 million) in 2025 “to strive for excellent results at the Milan Winter Olympics” only provided more ammunition for detractors to question her motivations for choosing to represent China.

Gu has said that she is “American when I’m in the US and Chinese when I’m in China”. In a different era of US-China relations, she might have served as a cultural ambassador, as the product of two different systems – a fact for which she has expressed gratitude.

But with the prevalence of zero-sum competition today between the two powers, for Gu, a choice of clothes or refusal to answer a loaded question becomes a test of political loyalties. 

In this context, her fluid, dual identity has become less a marker of her being comfortable with different cultures than of her market opportunism.

And her Olympic victory – depending on one’s allegiances – makes her either a hero or a traitor.