BEIJING — The legend of Eileen Gu continues to grow in China.
Gu, the American-born freestyle skier now competing for China, had already won a gold and a silver medal at these Olympics. Friday morning, under an ice-blue sky and in surprisingly warm — for the mountain venue — temperatures of 12 degrees Fahrenheit, Gu dropped into the halfpipe for her third and final event of the Games.
Two stellar runs later, she’d captured her second gold of the Olympics, and her stature in China had grown immeasurably.
In China, Gu is the face of these Games, her image and likeness appearing on billboards, in commercials, and on the omnipresent official Beijing Olympic shopping bags.