Skier Eileen Gu Talks About The Importance Of Representation

The sports prodigy made her X Games debut in January last year at the age of 17, bringing home two golds and one bronze. In an interview with Highsnobiety, she said, “I was the only rookie there. I was also the youngest competitor in my events. Being able to represent young people and represent women was really meaningful to me, as well as being the first person of Chinese descent to win X Games.”

She also made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Sports and Entertainment, the youngest person to be given the honor.

In her interview, Gu talked about being the only girl in her ski team while growing up, which led her to believe that “being as masculine as possible” was the key to getting ahead in the sport. That changed when she got to know Canadian skier Kaya Turski, who helped her realize that “girls can do it too.”

Talking to Forbes, she said, “My biggest message is just to encourage young girls in sports, extreme sports especially, to break boundaries and not feel too intimated by being the only girl or being the youngest.”

Though Gu was born in the US to an American father and a Chinese mother, she decided to compete for China beginning in 2019. “Skiing is traditionally a very white sport. There's literally nobody else of another race in all of the events that I do,” she said. “I'm the only Chinese representative in this industry. I was the first person of Chinese descent to ever win X Games, and I doubled the medal count for China, X Games history. All of this makes me feel really proud, more than anything.”

With all of this on her plate, how does Gu keep herself in check?

She says she runs almost daily and is not into dieting “because so much of it takes a mental toll and does very little for the body. There’s a really negative diet culture around youth and girls that I want to stay away from,” she said.

Mentally, she finds that keeping a journal helps, saying, “It has allowed me to understand myself more and helped me figure out the strategies that let me stay calm at the top of the competition course.”