First-ever freeski big air Olympic gold goes to Eileen Gu

The Olympic debut of freeski big air was a momentous one on Tuesday at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, as China’s own Eileen Gu stomped a final-run double cork 1620 safety grab to snatch the first of what could possibly be three gold medals for the 18 year old here in Beijing.

With the conditions sunny, warm and windless and the pristine Shougang Park big air jump running perfectly, it seemed inevitable that we would witness a women’s finals the likes of which has never been seen before, and the 12 skiers on hand for Tuesday’s finals did not disappoint.

Clean landings were the norm on the day, with 10 of the 12 finalists stomping at least one double invert, and heading into the third and final run of competition there was fully seven athletes very much in contention for the podium.

While the podium was within realistically in reach for more than half of the finals field before the start of run three, the gold looked to be all but locked up for France’s Tess Ledeux, who came out firing with the left double cork 1620 safety that she had first landed in competition two weeks ago at X Games, and then followed that up with a switch left 1440 Japan for a massive two-jump score of 187.50 out of a possible 200.

Sitting in third place behind Ledeux and Mathilde Gremaud (SUI) before her final run, Gu knew that she needed something special to grab the gold medal in front of the expectant Chinese crowd, and something special was just what she gave them, throwing her own version of the left dub 1620 safety.

It was the first time she had ever even attempted the trick, and when she stomped it and rode away clean the celebration from herself and the Chinese crowd could have been heard all the way back in the Olympic Village.