Name: Gu Ailing (谷爱凌) aka Eileen Gu
Scale of notoriety:
4/5 – it is no exaggeration to say that Eileen Gu is a familiar face for lots of China and global brands. She is the representative for several largest Chinese companies such as JD.com, Bank of China and Anta as well as ambassador for international brands like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co, Estee Lauder, Victoria Secret, etc, which makes her one of the top influential female athletes. Known to be one of the most promising Gen Z’s freestyle skier and model coming from America with a list of outstanding achievements: ranked first twice and one-time second place in big air, halfpipe and slopestyle for Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics.
Scale of Influence:
4/5 – Eileen Gu applied for a change of nation to the International Ski Federation from American to Chinese and has been competing for China ever since 2019. She made an announcement for nationality change on her Instagram and hoping that through skiing she will be able to ignite the passion among the youth generation and specifically encourage more young Chinese girls to join winter sports – which is considered less popular and glamorous in Asia compared to the United States. She also emphasized that her goal is "to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations."
Status: to begin her education at Stanford university after the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
Date of birth: September 17th, 2003
Background:
Eileen Gu was born by an American father and a Chinese mother. She developed a passion for recreational skiing during her first years of childhood and delved into professional spins, slides and flips at the age of eight despite her mother’s disapproval. A year later she quickly gained attention from the general public after she won the championship at Freeski Junior Association and the USA Snowboard. Although she only went skiing and training during her holidays and weekends, she managed to utilize most of it and became an athlete in her early childhood thanks to her qualities.
She was considered to be an “explosion” and number one threat to all the national competitions. At 15 Gu had her first major medals in the FIS Freeski World Cup Slopestyle in Canada, Italy and Seiser Alm. After several months, she made one of the most important decisions in life as to officially compete for China and consider it as a rewarding opportunity to be able to promote for skiing in a country where it is not widely known.
The first achievements Eileen Gu brought for China were the silverware at New Zealand’s Winter Games and another two gold medals at Switzerland’s Olympic Games. Along with that, she is also the first Chinese athlete to rank first in the contest and the only rookie who won three medals. In February 2022, Eileen Gu revealed that she had been admitted to Stanford university and will start her higher education after the Olympic Games.
Genetic make-up:
Eileen Gu wasn’t as lucky as other children who have both parents during their childhood. She was loved and raised by her grandmother and mother in San Francisco. The passion and natural talent for skiing runs in the family. Her mother herself was an avid skier and later sent her daughter to the ski school. Gu admitted that both her grandma and mother are by far the most influential definition of empowered women to her life.
Strengths:
Passionate: competitive nature and work ethic from her maternal family, a passion for skiing in the early years of childhood, the wish to inspire millions of young generationsn
Ambition : Eileen has clear objectives in life, and that is to aim high. Most notably, one of her goals is to study at Stanford and to reach Winter Olympics, and we can safely say she’s made great effort to achieve them.
Weaknesses:
Barely finds one.She is the perfect child next door raised by a single Asian mother, fluency in both English and Mandarin Chinese
Special talents: Besides skiing and modeling, Gu is also really interested and good at long-distance running and playing the piano. She was naturally born to be a celebrity.
Le Yen Nhi Huynh is an international student from Vietnam and currently in her final year at the University of Technology Sydney, majoring in Marketing. Besides from studying, she also has a passion for coffee and art, and is a part-time barista in Alexandria in Sydney. She loves communicating with people and is very dedicated to her work.
Instagram: @h_yennhi
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