China's freeski Olympic champion Gu Ailing takes off from the halfpipe during her qualification run at the FIS Freeski Halfpipe World Cup series' Chongli leg in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, on Thursday. She led the qualification field with 92.75 points to reach Saturday's final round. WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY
Freestyle skiing superstar Gu Ailing has reiterated her intention to promote her sport globally while choosing to represent China on the international stage with yet another Winter Games fast approaching.
China's two-time freeski Olympic gold medalist Gu — also known as Eileen in the United States, the country where she was born — proved that she remains the person to beat in the halfpipe discipline entering the 2025-26 season, after completing two clean runs on Thursday — leading a strong qualifying field and reaching the final round of the FIS World Cup series' Chongli leg in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.
The quality and consistency of Gu's performances prevailed on Thursday, following her triumphant debut in The Snow League competition at the same venue last week, after she stomped back-to-back 900-degree spins in her second qualification run to score a field-high 92.75 points to advance into Saturday's final.
Should she pull off another flawless run on Saturday, Gu will be celebrating her record-extending fifth victory at the Yunding Snow Park — a Beijing venue for freestyle skiing and snowboarding which is part of the Secret Garden resort in Chongli.
Chinese skier Li Fanghui performs a trick during her qualification run at the FIS Freeski Halfpipe World Cup series' Chongli leg in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, on Thursday. WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY
"I have more (tricks) for the final," Gu said in fluent Mandarin during a mixed-zone interview after the qualification round.
"It's always a great feeling to be back here and compete at home. To be able to win four times here in a row was something that's really tough, and it only gets harder each time."
"So, I'll just have to overcome the challenge over and over again. But it's so good to able to enjoy skiing every time I compete here," Gu said.
Gu won a gold medal in halfpipe and a silver in slopestyle at Yunding at the Beijing Winter Olympics and also landed a second gold at the home Games by dominating the big air competition at west Beijing's Shougang Industrial Park.
As familiar as getting back to her winning ways, Gu has again been facing media scrutiny for her choice to represent China, her mother's home country, with Milano-Cortina 2026 just around the corner.
She has insisted that her decision to compete on behalf of China instead of the US since 2019 was a genuine and natural choice to promote skiing — and all the positive influence the sport has on her — on the biggest stage possible.
"I think there are five athletes in this field who compete for other countries that weren't the ones they were born in, so I mean it's not that crazy of a thing to be doing at this point," Gu answered in English to a question regarding the debate on her representation of China.
Chinese athlete Zhang Kexin tries to perform a grab in the air during her qualification run at the FIS Freeski Halfpipe World Cup series' Chongli leg in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, on Thursday. WEI XIAOHAO / CHINA DAILY
"You can go back to my first interviews when I was just eight or nine years old, and I've been saying the same things since then."
"That was way before I thought I'd have a career in this sport, way before any national teams either wanted me to ski for them or even knew I existed," Gu said. "For me, just knowing deep from my heart that my message remains the same and it's to bring the sport to more people and to contribute a net positive good to the world."
Following Gu's lead, two other Chinese skiers, Li Fanghui and Zhang Kexin, both elite performers in halfpipe who have finished on the World Cup podium, also qualified for the final, finishing at third and fifth, respectively, on the qualification standings.
"I think I did a good job adjusting myself physically and mentally from last week and to get back to my peak form quickly for this World Cup meet," said Li, who finished third, outperformed by Gu in the semifinals at last week's Snow League competition in Chongli.
"Looking forward to the final, I think I will have to improve the quality and details of my tricks, such as the grabs and altitude, to go for the medals again," said Li, who won her first halfpipe World Cup title at the Calgary leg in Canada on Feb 16.
Editor:Cai Xiaohui
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