Freestyle skier Eileen Gu (谷愛凌) delivered a commanding performance at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, claiming gold in women's halfpipe along with silver medals in slopestyle and big air. The results extended her career Olympic tally to six medals, cementing her place as the most successful freeskier in Games history. Yet her continued representation of China — despite being born and raised in San Francisco — has once again triggered intense criticism in the United States, where the debate has shifted from legal technicalities to outright charges of disloyalty and moral failure.
A Controversy That Has Grown Sharper
Four years ago, discussions about Gu's choice were largely limited to Chinese-language communities and centered on the ambiguities of dual nationality and pragmatic career decisions. This time the outcry has reached mainstream American media and political circles. Accusations have escalated to claims of “unpatriotic” behavior and even betrayal, fueled in part by heightened U.S.–China rivalry.
The spark came when several U.S. athletes stated in interviews that competing under the American flag did not mean they fully endorsed the policies of the current administration. President Donald Trump responded by publicly attacking one of the athletes, igniting a coordinated wave of online harassment from conservative supporters. When figure skater Amber Glenn spoke out in defense of athletes' right to free expression, she became the next target. Gu and other prominent competitors voiced solidarity, prompting Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to join the criticism — elevating a young athlete's career choice to the level of “treason.”
The Weaponization of a Fellow Athlete
Conservative commentators quickly drew a sharp contrast between Gu and American-born figure skater Alysa Liu (劉美賢), who won gold in women's singles — the first U.S. title in that discipline in 24 years. Liu was held up as the ideal of loyalty and sacrifice for American values, while Gu was portrayed as having chosen money over principle. Liu herself, however, quietly aligned with the defense of free speech by posting photos with Glenn, a gesture that powerfully undermined the narrative constructed around her.
The vast majority of professional athletes reject the idea of a president leading campaigns against fellow competitors — not from politics, but from a shared commitment to empathy and the independence of sport.
Why the Selective Outrage Doesn't Hold
The core argument — that Liu stayed loyal by competing for the United States while Gu abandoned loyalty for financial gain — does not withstand scrutiny. In global sport, birthplace and competition nationality frequently diverge, governed by clear International Olympic Committee rules. Compliance with those rules is all that is required. Gu complied.
Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis was born, raised, and trained in the United States yet represents Sweden, his father's homeland, without facing loyalty accusations. At these Games, Britain's Zoe Atkin — another U.S.-born athlete and Gu's Stanford contemporary — took bronze in halfpipe yet escaped similar attacks. Tennis star Elena Rybakina switched from Russia to Kazakhstan before claiming major titles, and Martina Navratilova represented the United States after leaving Czechoslovakia. Eileen Gu is simply the Chinese version of any of them. The only difference is the flag on her jacket.
No one has ever been accused of disloyalty for being born in one country and competing for another. No one, that is, until now.
The Realities of Funding and Opportunity
Critics, including Treasury Secretary Bessent, have charged that Gu benefited from American resources without giving back. In reality, U.S. public sports funding overwhelmingly supports mainstream team disciplines. Niche individual events such as freestyle skiing and figure skating depend almost entirely on family investment before an athlete achieves elite status — often amounting to millions of dollars in private spending.
Gu's early training was privately funded until China naturalized her at age 16 and assumed responsibility for her expenses. The appropriate question here is not what she did for her country, but what her country did for her. The answer, in terms of material support, is: almost nothing.
Representing China offered significantly higher rewards: official bonuses, regional incentives, and endorsement opportunities far exceeding what most American winter-sport athletes receive. Had Gu competed for America, her rough equivalent would be two-time halfpipe champion Chloe Kim. Gu earns approximately four times what Kim does. None of that was guaranteed at 16 — it is a return built entirely on her own performance.
The reverse flow — foreign athletes training in the United States before competing elsewhere — occurs regularly without equivalent criticism. NBA player Kyle Anderson, with partial Chinese ancestry, joined China's national team without facing disloyalty claims. If Bessent's “harvesting talent” argument applies anywhere, it is there — not with Gu, whose training was privately financed from the start.
If Gu is American, then extracting maximum value from a foreign country sounds rather like the “Art of the Deal” philosophy her critics' preferred president has long championed.
Gu's Response and the Bigger Picture
Gu has answered her detractors plainly: the attacks stem from geopolitical animosity toward China and frustration at her success. When a journalist asked whether her two silvers felt like “lost golds,” she called the premise “ridiculous” — rightly so. In high-risk disciplines where a single run can be undone by weather or a fractional misjudgment, no outcome is assured. Her ability to overcome early-run errors and deliver decisive performances under pressure remains the defining hallmark of her career.
China once struggled with precisely this kind of narrow, exclusionary nationalism in sport. When table tennis player He Zhili emigrated to represent Japan and defeated a Chinese rival at the Asian Games, she faced widespread vilification as a traitor. That mindset has largely receded in China. The irony — and the sadness — is that similar strains now appear in the United States, a nation long proud of its openness to talent from everywhere.
Once, China suffered acutely from this kind of narrow nationalism. Now that disease has largely passed — and America appears to be catching it.
For an international audience, this episode illustrates how geopolitical tension can distort the meaning of personal athletic choices. Gu's path reflects the realities of modern sport: opportunity, heritage, and performance regularly cross national lines. This is not Eileen Gu's tragedy. The tragedy belongs to an America whose vision of itself is quietly, unmistakably shrinking.
*The author is a US-based political commentator.
