China's Eileen Gu poses with her gold medal after winning the women's freestyle skiing halfpipe final at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy, on Sunday. (AP photo)

LIVIGNO, Italy — By taking chances, Eileen Gu is building a sport. She’s winning medals. Yet on a sunny Sunday at the Olympics where she defended her title on the halfpipe, maybe the best prize of all was knowing her grandma would be proud.

That’s why her tears flowed freely. Not long after the victory gave her a record-breaking third Olympic gold medal in freeskiing, Gu learned her grandmother, Guozhen Feng, had died.

“She was a steamship,” Gu said. “This woman commanded life, and she grabbed it by the reins, and she made it into what she wanted it to be.”

It’s the way Gu, the 22-year-old — born in America but competing for her mother’s homeland of China — likes to approach skiing, school, life and everything she touches.

“She inspired me so much,” Gu said. “The last time I saw her before I came to the Olympics, she was very sick, so I knew that this was a possibility. I didn’t probably say that I was going to win, but I did promise her that I was going to be brave. She’s been brave.”

Knows what to say

Gu has had to exhibit a certain amount of bravery, too, over her young life.

There’s bravery on the mountain, where she puts her health (and her life) on the line with every jump. Then, there’s the will of steel she needs to deal with her world off the slopes.

Barely a day has passed at either of her two Olympics when Gu doesn’t get asked about the country she competes for almost as often as her freeskiing.

Not a day passes, either, where she doesn’t lean into the same message she’s been delivering for years: “If people disagree with me, if they have other skill sets, which I’m sure they do, then I encourage them to direct it elsewhere,” she said. “To make the world better in their own way.”

At her post-victory news conference, the well-spoken Stanford student handled all the questions — about geopolitics, her brain power, the future of skiing — head-on, but always bringing the conversation back to the reason she has captivated an audience in a sport that doesn’t always do that.

“The difficulty of competing in three events, making finals in three events,” she said. “I had to compete six times. I kind of liken it to a marathon, with the pace of a 100-meter dash. … I took a big risk in trusting myself, and I’m glad that I did.”

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics