Gu Ailing takes pride in skiing for China on world stage

"I have more (tricks) for the final," Gu said in fluent Mandarin during a mixed-zone interview after the qualification round.

"It's always a great feeling to be back here and compete at home. To be able to win four times here in a row was something that's really tough, and it only gets harder each time."

"So, I'll just have to overcome the challenge over and over again. But it's so good to able to enjoy skiing every time I compete here," Gu said.

Gu won a gold medal in halfpipe and a silver in slopestyle at Yunding at the Beijing Winter Olympics and also landed a second gold at the home Games by dominating the big air competition at west Beijing's Shougang Industrial Park.

As familiar as getting back to her winning ways, Gu has again been facing media scrutiny for her choice to represent China, her mother's home country, with Milano-Cortina 2026 just around the corner.

She has insisted that her decision to compete on behalf of China instead of the US since 2019 was a genuine and natural choice to promote skiing — and all the positive influence the sport has on her — on the biggest stage possible.

"I think there are five athletes in this field who compete for other countries that weren't the ones they were born in, so I mean it's not that crazy of a thing to be doing at this point," Gu answered in English to a question regarding the debate on her representation of China.