Eileen Gu may compete for China, but the only entity she really represents is Eileen Gu, Inc.

LIVIGNO, Italy — Eileen Gu will likely win another medal Monday in the women’s big air freeski final. And she will likely come to the news conference, as she always does, and sidestep any questions about the true nature of her citizenship, the political implications of her choice as a 15-year-old to represent China — not the United States — at the Olympics, and the various human rights atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party.

And then, 8,000 miles away in the US, the fury will begin – directed both at Gu for his disloyalty to the country of his birth and at those here to document his achievements because we don’t spend our time watching a dozen dead ends about the Uyghurs, Taiwan and social media condemnation of Jimmy Lai for creating viral thirst and causing Gucha’s thirst. the fraud that some believe.

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Eileen Gu, now 22 and an international relations major at Stanford, is many things. She’s an opportunist. She is outwardly ambitious in ways that make you wonder how deep her inner cynicism runs. She presents her complicated life story through the lens of a saccharine world that doesn’t exist, and becomes elusive the moment something controversial is brought into her orbit. He can talk a lot without saying much.

She is all of those things and probably much more.

But she’s not stupid, and she’s never unruly enough to get on the wrong side of a government that made her very, very rich.

So as much as she’s dedicated her life to being a rank opportunist, maybe it really doesn’t matter what country she represents when she puts on her skis, because her ability to game the system for all it’s worth is as American as apple pie.

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The answers many of you seem to want? I’m sorry, but they’re not coming – certainly not in a press conference room in the Italian Alps after jumping off a 15-story ramp. They will probably never come.

Did she make a deal with the CCP to keep her American passport in defiance of Chinese law that does not allow dual citizenship?

Did the $6.6 million she and another American-born athlete earn from the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau last year — an amount that was accidentally disclosed in a tax report before being scrubbed from the Internet, according to the Wall Street Journal — come with some hard work?

Does she really believe that inspiring Chinese women to participate in winter sports will improve the lives of women under a regime that is embarrassingly far behind most of the modern world in terms of political representation, economic opportunity and the rights of victims of domestic abuse?

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She was asked about all these things, many times over many years in many different locations. And as good as she is on the slopes, she’s even better on Never Going There.

As she told Time Magazine’s Sean Gregory in an in-depth piece reported before the Milan Cortina Games, when asked how she would respond to a question about imposing tariffs on China on Donald Trump: “I would just say, ‘I didn’t know I was being promoted to commerce secretary.’ It is irresponsible to ask me to be the mouthpiece for any agenda.”

So we all have to make a choice when it comes to Eileen Gu.

Do we want to reach the brink of insanity with foaming at the mouth screeds about flying the flag of an oppressive regime, or do we accept her for who she is: a really good skier who has no real connection to anything that really matters in either China or the United States and has found a way to capitalize on her talent, her good looks, and her Mandarin. Winter Olympics.

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In a small defense of Gu, it’s worth remembering that she chose to compete for China when she was 15.

What do you think she knew at 15, born to a Chinese mother who raised her as a single parent? At that age, I doubt she expected it to be anything more than a business decision—and one that, while undeniably complicated and perhaps morally problematic, turned out to be the right one for her bank account and list of sponsors who want to be in Eileen Gu’s business.

Did he have reason to believe that he would turn into this? did i do it People switch nationalities all the time in sports – both ways. She did it before the brutal crackdown in Hong Kong, before most people understood the extent of the atrocities committed against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, before COVID. This may not matter to you, but the context of choice then is not the context of choice now.

And since becoming an international superstar and four-time Olympic medalist — with perhaps two more to come here in Livigno — it’s not as if Gu has spent his social capital extolling the virtues of the CCP’s censorship regime and economic system. She talks about breaking down divisions and inspiring young people with her athletic achievements. Very clearly, she does not want to be part of the culture war that others are trying to drag her into.

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It might be cynical as hell, but a lot of fans don’t want athletes to stick to sports?

Here’s the truth: Gu may be wearing the five-star red flag on her ski suit, but the only entity she really represents is Eileen Gu, Inc. To portray it as anything more than that to fuel American political outrage on social media is almost as disastrous as it is.