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Winter Olympics 2026: How Eileen Gu divides opinion - BBC

BBC 2026-02-19 21:00 Read Original →

Summary Full Article

Eileen Gu, a 22-year-old Chinese-American freestyle skier and the most decorated female Olympic freestyle skier in history, continues to generate intense controversy for her 2019 decision to compete for China instead of the US. Her $23.1 million earnings (largely from Chinese endorsements and a reported $14 million in Beijing government payments) and recent defense of US athletes criticizing America—while remaining silent on China's human rights record—has reignited accusations of hypocrisy and opportunism. The story matters because it crystallizes tensions between the world's two superpowers through the lens of individual athletic choice, national identity, and the commercialization of Olympic sport.

Second-Order Effects

Near-term consequences — what happens next

  1. **Increased scrutiny of dual-citizenship athletes' financial arrangements**: The Wall Street Journal's revelation of nearly $14 million in Chinese government payments to Gu will likely trigger investigations and policy discussions in both the US and internationally about transparency requirements for athletes receiving state funding from foreign governments, potentially leading to new Olympic eligibility rules requiring financial disclosure.
  2. **Chilling effect on athlete activism for those with commercial ties to authoritarian states**: Gu's backlash demonstrates that athletes with significant business interests in countries like China face severe reputational costs when engaging in political speech elsewhere, which will likely cause other similarly-positioned athletes to retreat further from social commentary to protect their endorsement portfolios.
  3. **Escalation of US-China sports diplomacy tensions ahead of 2028 Los Angeles Olympics**: With the 2026 controversy fresh and the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles approaching, expect heightened nationalist rhetoric, potential visa complications for Chinese athletes, and increased political pressure on American athletes and sponsors to distance themselves from Chinese commercial partnerships.
  4. **Fragmentation of global sports sponsorship markets along geopolitical lines**: As brands face backlash for associations with politically controversial athletes like Gu, multinational corporations will increasingly create separate Eastern and Western brand ambassador portfolios, accelerating the bifurcation of global consumer markets and potentially reducing the economic value of being a "global" sports icon.
  5. **Redefinition of national identity and patriotism in diaspora communities**: The intensity of criticism directed at Gu—despite her genuine Chinese heritage through her mother—signals a hardening attitude toward dual loyalty and hybrid identities, potentially pressuring second-generation immigrants worldwide to make more explicit national allegiances and reducing the acceptance of fluid, transnational identities that have characterized globalization.
  6. **Weaponization of Olympic sports as soft power competition tools**: China's substantial financial investment in Gu ($14 million in government funding) demonstrates a strategic approach to Olympics as geopolitical theater rather than pure athletic competition, which will likely trigger reciprocal state-sponsored athlete recruitment and funding programs by the US and allies, fundamentally transforming Olympic competition into a proxy for great power rivalry and undermining the Games' stated ideals of political neutrality.