Eileen Gu Will Never Be The Traitor JD Vance Wants Her To Be

On Thursday, a certain freestyle skier will clip her boots on and huck herself down the halfpipe in Livigno, to the feverish anticipation of fans in two countries. Though she was born in the United States and attends Stanford University, she represents and wins medals under the banner of a different nation at the Olympics. She has yet to win a gold medal at the 2026 Games, though halfpipe is her best event, and therefore the one that will draw the most scrutiny. That's right: It's almost Zoe Atkin's time.

Atkin, a 23-year-old Massachusetts native representing her father's native Great Britain, probably is not the freestyle skier you were thinking of, if you were thinking of one at all, and is certainly not the most famous person to whom those descriptors apply. That would be Eileen Gu, the 22-year-old San Francisco native competing in her second Olympics for China. Much like the first time around, she is racking up medals; much like the first time around, she is also being called a traitor by cogs in the American nationalist apparatus like the Free Press, Enes Kanter Freedom (misidentified as an NBA "star" in many write-ups), and, most notably of all, U.S. vice president JD Vance.

"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 told Fox News. "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."