Chinese freestyle skier Eileen Gu is taking home two silver medals from this year’s Winter Olympics, one in the women’s big air competition and another in the women’s slopestyle.
But as the odds-on favorite to win gold, one reporter wondered whether Gu still viewed her performance as a success, or would be leaving Italy disappointed. Turns out, it was an easy answer for Gu, who laughed off the reporter’s premise entirely.
You got to give lots of credit to Eileen Gu for responding brilliantly back to the reporter with great confidence.
She looked him in the eye said that was a “ridiculous perspective” without any hesitation or fear. 😁 pic.twitter.com/fPz5uQIosT
— Alvin Foo (@alvinfoo) February 18, 2026
“Do you see these as two silvers gained, or two golds lost?” a reporter asked Gu during her press conference.
“I’m the most decorated female freeskier in history! I think that’s an answer in and of itself,” a laughing Gu replied. “How do I say this? Winning a medal at the Olympics is a life changing experience for every athlete. Doing it five times is exponentially harder, because every medal is equally hard for me, but everybody else’s expectations rise, right? So the two medals lost situation, to be quite frank with you, I think is kind of a ridiculous perspective to take. I’m showcasing my best skiing. I’m doing things that quite literally have never been done before. And so I think that is more than good enough, but thank you.”
To be fair to the reporter, it’s a fairly reasonable question to ask someone who had their sights on gold going into the Olympics. But Gu’s reaction to the question is equally reasonable. Winning any medal at an Olympics is hard, and that task gets even harder under the weight of expectations.
And honestly, the reporter is probably happy he asked that question. Gu gave a great answer, one that provided very clear perspective on how she viewed her performance. Perhaps one could take issue with the phrasing about “two golds lost,” but the idea the reporter was trying to get at was quite simple, and he got the answer he wanted.
