Eileen Gu Reveals Deeply Personal Writing Ahead of Olympics: "At Last, I Am Home"

Eileen Gu, the 22-year-old freeskier who competes for China, is the overwhelming favorite to win medals in Big Air, Halfpipe, and Slopestyle at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

Gu burst onto the freeskiing scene as a teenager at X Games, won two golds and a silver at the 2022 Beijing Games, became a bona fide supermodel, and is among the top-paid female athletes in the world.

“Coming into my second Olympics as the same person in many ways, and also changed in some others,” writes Gu in an Instagram post caption on February 3, 2026, just days before the Games are scheduled to start.

“At my core, the mission remains the same—to introduce freeskiing to more young people (especially girls), to push women’s skiing and represent it honorably on the world stage, and to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience (every Olympics is a once in a lifetime experience).”

The biggest difference, Gu admits, is that she’s entering these Olympics with “a new sense of lightness” and an “excitement for progression”. Despite her record-breaking success, Gu felt “stuck,” balancing time between injuries, studying for school (she’s a student at Stanford), and having limited time on snow.

“Now, I feel this renewed sense of infatuation with skiing itself, with competing for the sake of sportsmanship and Olympic values, and with the art and craftsmanship that is inherent to this sport,” she says in the post.

The entire Instagram post has been embedded below. Click or tap the arrow to progress through the slides to Gu’s journal entry after winning at Secret Garden in December of 2025. Keep reading for more.

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Gu noticed a shift after winning the Halfpipe World Cup event at Secret Garden, China, in December of 2025. In a rare move for the usually private and reserved superstar skier, Gu took pictures of a journal entry she logged shortly after claiming victory at Secret Garden.

You can read them in their entirety on the last slides of the embedded post above. Keep reading for a summary.

Gu reveals that she entered the “flow state” during her run at Secret Garden despite speed challenges during practice sessions, and the lagging trauma of hitting her head in January of 2025.

“Cockiness is external—it necessitates the introduction of a social element,” writes Gu in the journal entry. “Flow is its inverse—it is a sinking into the limitless capability of the self. There is no time I feel more powerful, beautiful, or alive than when I can feel myself expanding into the best version of myself.”

Gu reveals that her big celebration and claim after winning at Secret Garden, something her fans aren’t used to seeing, was an expression of pure emotion:

“The claim and celebration of that contest was about winning and setting a new record, but it was more of an outpouring of emotion at the manifest reality that after everything I’ve been through—the sleepless nights, the numbness, the fear—I have finally come back to myself. At last, I am home.”

The moment was transformative and is allowing Gu to be “fully present in this experience,” according to the post’s caption.

We’re not gamblers here at POWDER, but if we had to stake a claim on one skier that will leave Milan-Cortina with at least one gold medal clanking around their neck, it would most certainly be Eileen Gu.

Stay tuned here at POWDER for news, stories, and results through Milan-Cortina 2026. We’ve got you covered.

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