She accumulates victories, and not only sports.
At 19, the Olympic champion in freestyle skiing - two gold medals and a silver won at the Beijing Winter Olympics alone - is also a brilliant student (in a few months, she will be on the benches of the very selective American University of Stanford) as an agile influencer on issues of image profitability and diplomatic approach in hostile geopolitical terrain.
Wearing a ski helmet or a red towel hat, dressed in technical sports pants or a luxury jacket, the Chinese-American is comfortable everywhere: in her clothes, in the airs and in monetizing his status as a glamorous athlete, which has been a hit in China since 2019.
For good reason: that year, the young hope of freestyle skiing, aged 15, took everyone by surprise.
Trained in freestyle on American soil, where she was born, she announces that she will represent the People's Republic of China, her mother's native country, at the 2022 Olympic events. A choice dictated, according to her, by the desire to "honor her heritage", and which she thus presents as a matter of culture, sentimentality and the promotion of sport.
In the aftermath, the reactions rain.
In a context of Sino-American tension that continues to swell, the word "treason" is dropped.
The American ski federation evokes “a difficult decision”, certain politicians and conservative media go so far as to qualify the teenager as “ungrateful”.
A wave of hostility that social networks,
fertile ground for cyber-harassment, spread at all costs.
And that still lasts today.
Does she suffer from it?
If so, Eileen Gu doesn't say a word about it.
Full screen
Eileen Gu, before the flower ceremony during the Women's Freeski Slopestyle Freestyle Skiing Final on Day 11 of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. (Zhangjiakou, February 15, 2022.) Getty Images
Most Sponsored Athlete of the Games
The only certainty: the subject surpasses sports conversation.
In question, the tense context of relations between the two countries.
But not only.
For some, it is also about commercial interests that the athlete would have preferred to put before the mother country.
Because behind the two blonde locks that surround the quiet smile of the child prodigy hide bitterly discussed partnerships.
Eileen Gu arrived at the Beijing Games with more than twenty sponsors pegged to skis, ranging from tech (such as Beats by Dre headphones or the e-commerce giant JD.com) to Cadillac cars, passing by the chain Luckin Cofee coffees, Estée Lauder cosmetics, Victoria's Secret lingerie, Louis Vuitton luxury fashion, Tiffany & Co jewelry and Oakley eyewear.
Contracts equivalent to those of a star model – what she has become since joining IMG, the agency that represents Kate Moss.
They made her a multi-millionaire whose earnings have exploded since winning three medals at the Games.
According to The Economist, her advertising revenue for the year 2021 amounts to more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros), which makes her the third highest paid female athlete behind tennis players Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
But above all, the woman of the situation, at a time when Western brands have to deal with an increasingly obvious nationalist reflex among Chinese consumers.
agency that represents Kate Moss.
They made her a multi-millionaire whose earnings have exploded since winning three medals at the Games.
According to The Economist, her advertising revenue for the year 2021 amounts to more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros), which makes her the third highest paid female athlete behind tennis players Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
But above all, the woman of the situation, at a time when Western brands have to deal with an increasingly obvious nationalist reflex among Chinese consumers.
agency that represents Kate Moss.
They made her a multi-millionaire whose earnings have exploded since winning three medals at the Games.
According to The Economist, her advertising revenue for the year 2021 amounts to more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros), which makes her the third highest paid female athlete behind tennis players Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
But above all, the woman of the situation, at a time when Western brands have to deal with an increasingly obvious nationalist reflex among Chinese consumers.
year 2021 are worth more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros), which makes her the third highest paid female athlete behind tennis players Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
But above all, the woman of the situation, at a time when Western brands have to deal with an increasingly obvious nationalist reflex among Chinese consumers.
year 2021 are worth more than 15 million dollars (13 million euros), which makes her the third highest paid female athlete behind tennis players Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams.
But above all, the woman of the situation, at a time when Western brands have to deal with an increasingly obvious nationalist reflex among Chinese consumers.
Full screen
Eileen Gu at the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2022 show.
(Paris, October 5, 2021.) Getty Images
Influencer
China loves Eileen Gu, or rather Gu Ailing, her local name.
In addition to his sporting pedigree, his mastery of Mandarin, spoken with a Beijing accent, caused a sensation.
Her tenacity and the accomplished pianist she has been since the age of 9, too.
Her face, plastered across the country, has also appeared on the covers of Chinese editions of
GQ
and
Elle
.
Vogue China
made her editor-in-chief of its bimonthly issue.
And she knows how to work on her image, depending on the social network she uses.
Her 4.5 million fans on Weibo (Chinese social network) delight in the complicity she shows in the kitchen with her mother and her grandmother - from her American father, we just know that she never has. seen.
On Instagram, where she exceeded one million subscribers during the Games, it is rather the image of the model and cool freestyle skier that is cultivated.
The message that the young athlete thus sends to her sponsors is clear: her figure is a safe bet, alert on her desired communication free from any hitch.
Even if she is not completely immune to it.
The “Eileen effect”
If the sportswoman plays the bridge between China and the United States, she is careful not to interfere in political speeches.
“A bad interpretation, and the career is ruined”, declared on this subject, in the columns of The Economist, his American agent Tom Yaps.
Eileen Gu thus finds herself caught in a high-flying diplomatic game in which she avoids taking a position, in particular on the fate reserved for the Uyghur minority.
“There is no need to sow discord
,
” she told The
New York Times .
, refusing to speak on the subject, while several countries, including the United States, have launched a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games to protest against the Chinese posture in terms of human rights.
She doesn't get bogged down either on the identity chapter.
To the question “have you become Chinese?”
asked regularly since she announced that she was competing for China - and returned with insistence during the Winter Games - she invariably replies: "when I am in China, I am Chinese and when I go to the United States, I am American".
Pragmatic and skilled in dodging.
Because according to Chinese law, dual nationality is prohibited.
Eileen Gu should therefore, logically, have given up her American passport by choosing to represent her mother's country at the Beijing Games.
But it doesn't seem to hurt the "Eileen effect."
Since his victory in the big air, sales of his ski suit worn during the Games, a model from the Chinese brand Anta Sport, have multiplied by twenty on the e-commerce sales platform JD.com.
The coffee chain Luckin Cofee also announced a rush on all products bearing its image.
Its popularity is also confirmed on social media where the American brand Tiffany & Co, which joined the luxury group LVMH in 2021, saw its name appear in the trending topics of the Chinese networks Weibo, Xiahongshu and Douyin, after the champion took off her gloves and unveiled four Tiffany & Co rings when she presented her second gold medal.
at the
