China’s Eileen Gu ‘really proud’ of big air silver after inspired Oldham wins Games gold
Canada’s Megan Oldham gets the better of defending champion Eileen Gu, who becomes five-time Winter Olympics medallist
Eileen Gu grabbed her second silver of the Winter Olympics and said she was “really proud”, despite failing to defend the freeski big air title she won in Beijing four years ago.
The Chinese star had been among the favourites to win even though she had not competed in the discipline for several years, and seemed destined to do so after major rival Mathilde Gremaud withdrew through injury at the last minute.
A major snowstorm also delayed proceedings by more than an hour, allowing Gu to recover from a nasty fall she took in her last training run.
But she still could not get the better of Canada’s inspired Megan Oldham, who pulled out all the stops to win at Livigno Snow Park. Bronze went to Italian Flora Tabanelli, who had the highest jump score of the day: 94.25 points in her third run.
“Really proud. Five-time Olympic medallist. Kind of has a ring to it,” Gu, the fourth-highest paid female athlete in the world, said. “I’m not disappointed. I’m pretty happy to be here. I didn’t really think I was going to compete in big air.
“I actually had a really bad head hit on my last run of training. I broke a helmet and so I was really happy about the delay, because I was icing my head and lying in a dark room so that I could just adjust.