Ailing (Eileen) Gu took the gold in the first-ever Olympic big air freestyle skiing competition — and she was followed to the podium by Tess Ledeux of France (silver) and Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud (bronze).
The finals action from the Shougang Industrial Park saw a decided step-up from yesterday’s qualifiers, with the women pushing hard and flying high in a chase for the first-ever freestyle skiing big-air gold medal on offer here at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games.
Team China’s Ailing (Eileen) Gu brought the home fans to their feet with her first run (a huge double cork 1440). And she kept them there all the way through to her third, when she sealed an historic top-of-the-podium finish in style.
It all came down to the last three runs of the day, with Gu, Tess Ledeux of France and Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland all guaranteed places on the podium.
All that needed to be sorted was the order.
Gu, going first, pulled off a massive 1620 with a perfect landing to move herself just barely into first place with a combined score of 188.25. Gremaud came down on her back going big and was unable to overtake the 18-year-old USA-born phenom who’s fast become the darling of the host nation — and a three-discipline gold-medal contender (big air, slopestyle and halfpipe).