Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo celebrates after winning gold in the men’s 50km mass start classic.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Skiing star Eileen Gu is among those making heads turn at the ongoing Winter Olympics in Italy. The 22-year-old, competing in her second Winter Games, has already won a pair of medals – silver in Women’s Freeski Big Air as well as in the Slopestyle events. And this Sunday, Gu could add a third, possibly gold, when she competes at the Halfpipe event.

Why then is Gu is in the spotlight in the Milano-Cortina Games for negative reasons despite being one of the greatest female freestyle skiers ever? She had after all won two gold medals along with a silver at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne as well as the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and also has gold medals at the Freestyle World Ski Championships as well as Winter X Games.

How’s Eileen Gu’s career-choices have been met with anger in the US

Gu finds herself at the centre of a heated debate in the United States due to her nationality. Though she was born and brought up in the US, specifically San Francisco in California, Gu has been representing China since 2019.

What many an American, particularly the conservative-leaning ones, finds offensive is the fact that Gu not only turned her back on the country that had raised her and helped her take her baby steps in elite sport, but that she chose to represent a nation with one of the worst human rights records in the world.

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Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom went to the extent of labeling her a “traitor” who represents a regime that is “literally running a concentration camp”.

“I’m just going to say it, she’s a traitor. She was born in America. She was raised in America, lives in America, and chooses to compete against her own country for, literally, the worst human rights abuser on the planet, China. She built her fame in a free country, and then chooses to represent an authoritarian regime,” Freedom told Fox News.

“She chose to play for a country that is literally responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of its own people, and literally running a concentration camp while we’re talking,” he added.

Eileen Gu is a US-born skier who is working for Communist China, a regime that wants to destroy our country.

There must be consequences for those who betray the United States and support our adversaries. pic.twitter.com/Qo7LBigrNa

— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) February 17, 2026

Vice-president JD Vance, who has seen as a strong Republican candidate for 2028 after Donald Trump second term at the White House comes to an end, was a lot more measured in his assessment of Gu’s citizenship compared to Freedom.

“I certainly think that somebody who grew up in the United States of America, who benefited from our education system, from the freedoms and liberties that make this country a great place, I would hope that they want to compete with the United States of America,” Vance said.

“So, I’m going to root for American athletes and I think part of that is people who identify themselves as Americans. That’s who I’m rooting for this Olympics,” he added.

It is, however, highly unlikely that Gu will be letting the heated discussion around her nationality and the traitor accusations affect her training as she sets her sights on gold this Sunday.

The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics officially open with a star-studded opening ceremony at the San Siro Stadium on Friday (February 6, 2026).

The most geographically dispersed Games in history will start in Italy’s economic capital at 1900 GMT with a three-hour extravaganza that takes in the three other sites spread across the Alps and the Dolomites.

While details of the ceremony remain secret, the theme of harmony runs through it, threading together different elements from the financial hub of Milan to the snow-capped mountains of Cortina d’Ampezzo.

And for the first time the 2,900 athletes will parade in the venues closest to where they will compete, in a bid to minimise travel. They will be in Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo.

United States’ Oliver Martin competes in men’s snowboard big air qualifications at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy, on February 5, 2026
| Photo Credit:
AP

The opening ceremony is expected to draw a global audience of hundreds of millions and offers “a unique platform to convey positive messages, not divisive ones,” creative director Marco Balich promised.

‘No distractions’

Balich, who also directed the Turin Winter Games curtain-raiser in 2006, intends to pay tribute to Italian design and fashion, with a special nod to the designer Giorgio Armani, who passed away last year.

He said the ceremony “will tell the story of a young and modern Italy, looking towards the future, without indulging in the Dolce Vita”.

American singer Mariah Carey, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Chinese pianist Lang Lang are to perform.

Dozens of dignitaries will attend, including US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Vance met International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry, who is overseeing her first Games since her election in March, at a dinner for heads of state on Thursday.

A view of curling stones during the mixed doubles round robin phase of the curling competition against Czechia, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on February 5, 2026
| Photo Credit:
AP

The United States hosts the next Olympics, the 2028 Summer Games, in Los Angeles.

Coventry has said she hopes “anything that is distracting from” the Milan-Cortina Olympics will be put aside for the February 6-22 extravaganza.

She was hinting at anger in Italy after it emerged that agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE will have an “advisory” role at the Games.

Rome has denied that the agents will have any operational role on its soil.

One of the most prominent US athletes, reigning Olympic snowboard champion Chloe Kim, took apparent aim at President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown as she arrived in Italy.

Kim said in an Instagram post she was proud to represent a country that is “strongest when it embraces diversity, dignity, and hope”.

“My parents left South Korea in search of a better future for their family. They left behind everything they knew so that my sisters and I could have the chance to one day live the American dream,” she added.

Speculation surrounds torchbearers

The Olympic flame reached Milan on Thursday (February 5) but organisers have tried to keep the identity of the final two torchbearers for the opening ceremony under wraps.

They will simultaneously light two cauldrons inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s knots, one suspended under Milan’s Arch of Peace, and the other in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

On Wednesday, it was reported it would be Alberto Tomba in Milan and Deborah Compagnoni in Cortina, two of Italy’s most decorated alpine skiers.

A skier during the men’s snowboard big air qualification in Livigno, Italy on February 5, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

The sports programme has already begun with curling and women’s ice hockey, but not without hiccups.

The women’s ice hockey tournament experienced a setback when the match between Canada and Finland had to be postponed due to a virus that sidelined four Finnish players, who were suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea.

Other women’s games did go ahead, with the USA starting their bid to better their silver medal from the 2022 Beijing Olympics by beating the Czech Republic 5-1.

Meanwhile the biggest star of these Olympics, American skier Lindsey Vonn, will on Friday get a chance to test her injured knee in training for the women’s downhill in Cortina.

Vonn’s Olympic comeback at the age of 41 was almost derailed after she ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament in a race last week, but she insists she will compete.

Published – February 06, 2026 08:46 am IST