LIVIGNO: Australian teen prodigy Indra Brown missed the podium but shared a beautiful moment with gold medallist Eileen Gu, who declared afterwards that the 16-year-old has “many, many, many, many, many medals in her future”.
After missing her landing on her first hit of the free ski halfpipe final, the American born-Chinese megastar took control in her second run with a near flawless 94.00 in which she soared four metres above the coping of the halfpipe, well clear of the air heights of all of her rivals apart from British world champion Zoe Atkin.
Gu improved on that score with a phenomenal third run 94.75 to seal her position on the top step of the podium, with her Chinese teammate Li Fanghui winning silver with a second run 93.00. Coming down the halfpipe last after qualifying for the final with the highest score, Atkin put down a superb third run that gave the judges plenty to think about but she was unable to dislodge the Chinese 1-2 and was forced to settle for bronze with a 92.50.
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Despite being the third highest scoring qualifier to start the final, Brown had to haul herself up the leaderboard from a long way behind, with her first run 55.50 marked down by the judges for her lack of amplitude (height above the coping). She improved with her second run, scoring a 65.00, before catapulting herself into fifth with a superb finishing run 87.00.
A proud Gu, who finished her third run just before Brown, embraced the Australian young gun who she describes as her “mini-me” as soon as she exited the halfpipe on her third run.
“Oh, she’s so amazing. I mean she’s incredible. The consistency, the execution, I, I think she’s fantastic,” Gu told a selection of English-speaking media, including Wide World of Sports, after being presented with her gold medal.
“I told her I was so proud of her, and also I told her that her time would come because I could tell she was a little bit disappointed with fifth, but I’m not at all worried [about her future prospects].
“She has many, many, many, many, many medals in her future, and so, as long as she keeps up her work ethic, I have no concern. She can be amazing.”
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Brown later described the moment with her idol as “pretty special”.
If Gu was right about the Aussie young gun’s initial reaction to finishing fifth, she had shaken off the disappointment by the time she spoke to Australian media minutes later.
She described landing three runs in her first Olympic final as “special”, executing the combination in her final run for the first time ever in competition.
“It’s incredible, you know, I just wanted to come out here and show everyone what I could do,” she said.
Brown won’t have any time for reflection having just competed at her first Olympic Games at such a tender age, with the 16-year-old virtually getting straight on a plane to Canada for the Park and Pipe Junior World Championships to be held in Calgary.
She’ll be a hot favourite to win gold at that meet and if she can it will be just another parallel with the career of Gu. Already Brown is coached by the same woman who guided the early stages of the Chinese megastar’s career, Jaime Melton.
Gu now has six medals from the first six events of her Olympic Games career, adding a third gold to the three silvers she has won across three disciplines – halfpipe, slopestyle and big air – at Beijing 2022 and Milano Cortina 2026.
She won her latest gold with the added weight of the death of her grandmother on her shoulders, revealing in her press conference on Sunday night (AEDT) that she was late to the final due to having received the sad news.
“The reason I was late, I just found out that my grandma passed away, and she was a really big part of my life growing up and someone I looked up to immensely,” Gu said through tears.
“She was such a stronger – she was a fighter – and I think what’s so interesting is that a lot of people just cruise through life, but she was a steamship. This woman commanded life, and she grabbed it by the reins and she made it what she wanted it to be.
“And, she inspired me so much. The last time I saw her before I came over to the Olympics she was very sick, so I knew this was a possibility. I didn’t promise her I was going to win, but I did promise her that I was going to be brave, like she has been brave, and that’s why I keep referring to this theme of betting on myself and being brave and taking risks.
“It actually goes back to that promise [between] me and my grandma. So I’m really happy I was able to uphold that and hopefully do her proud, but it’s also a really difficult time for me.”
Eileen Gu poses with her medals after winning the Milano Cortina 2026 women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final. Â AP
At just 22, Gu is now the most decorated freestyle skier in Olympic Games history, both by gold medals and total medals.
It’s a huge achievement but it won’t have any bearing on what she does next, with the biggest name in winter sports assuring media that she plans to continue skiing long into the future.
“I’m so in love with skiing, and I think this past Olympic cycle especially, I’ve broken through so much like mental gunk that had kind of built up after the last Olympics and so after the last Olympics, I took like nine months off,” she said.
“I don’t even really want to do that. Like I kind of want to – I have to go to Fashion Week (in Milan) now and like do my fashion work as like the other job, but after that I kind of just want to go back and ski more.
“Does that sound crazy?”
Perhaps only to her rivals, who face another four years of competition against one of the most dominant athletes in the world.