her\u00a0Milan-Cortina odyssey<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 three events and up to 15 dangerous trips down the slopes over 15 days \u2014 with a second straight silver medal in the event.<\/p>\nBecause the San Francisco native couldn\u2019t land it the other two times over the three-run contest, she never really had a chance to go for gold.<\/p>\n
For the second straight time, that belonged to Switzerland\u2019s Mathilde Gremaud in what, only minutes after it was over, was already being hailed as the best women\u2019s slopestyle contest in the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was definitely the best slopestyle run I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d Gu said.<\/p>\n
And Gremaud: \u201cI would say it\u2019s the best one I\u2019ve ever done in my life, yes.\u201c<\/p>\n
Megan Oldham of Canada hit back-to-back jumps with 1260 degrees of spin \u2014 not an everyday occurrence out there \u2014 and finished with the bronze.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, the world\u2019s two best skiers each nailing the best runs of their lives resulted in a margin of .38 \u2014 a sliver of space that was virtually the same as the gap when they also finished 1-2 at the Beijing Games four years ago.<\/p>\n
And yet, for two skiers so closely bunched, the difference in their approaches couldn\u2019t have been more stark.<\/p>\n
About two weeks ago, Gu set about reworking her rails portion \u2014 the four features on the more-technical top of the slope \u2014 to juice up her Olympic routine.<\/p>\n
There are options up there, and on the very first rail, Gu was the only skier out of the 12 finalists to choose the longer rail on the right.<\/p>\n
The trick \u2014 skiing backward, then leaping over the lower part of the feature while twisting to her right, the unnatural direction, and trying to land smack-dab on the rail \u2014 is called \u201cdisaster\u201d for a very simple reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can go really, really bad,\u201d said U.S. coach Ryan Wyble, one of many, including NBC analyst and former pro freeskier Tom Wallisch, who called this the most progressive women\u2019s contest they\u2019d seen.<\/p>\n
When it goes good, though, you end up with what Gu had \u2014 the lead and a sense of real accomplishment after landing it on her first run, especially knowing it was that trick that tripped her up throughout training and also caused the\u00a0first-run fall two days earlier\u00a0that turned qualifying into such a stresser.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to put it down when it counts, to peak at the right time, I really think it\u2019s important and a testament to my mental strength,\u201d Gu said.<\/p>\n
The judges liked it. The 9.2 they awarded for the first jump and the 25.95 they gave for the entire rails portion were the highest marks of the day.<\/p>\n
But the high-flying part of this show \u2014 the part that brings the oohs and ahhs and that landed this event on the Olympic program 12 years ago \u2014 begins with the three jumps toward the bottom. That\u2019s where Gremaud placed her focus in the run-up to the Olympics, and it showed.<\/p>\n
For her winning run, Gremaud, a 26-year-old who has last year\u2019s world championship title to go with her two Olympic golds, skied backward, then flipped twice while spinning once and nailed the landing. It was the first time she\u2019d ever pulled that off in a contest. She followed that with back-to-back 1260s, each in a different direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely the most intense run I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gu, meanwhile, could not land the \u201cdisaster\u201d on either her second or third runs. After her final fall, she stabbed her poles into the ground and put her hand on her hips. Moments later, she was skiing down, then smiling into the camera at the bottom.<\/p>\n
All of which turned Gremaud\u2019s final run into a victory lap. She did straight big airs down the course with her country\u2019s flag flapping from the back of her ski suit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not happy for you that you didn\u2019t land the third run,\u201d Gremaud said to Gu during the medalist news conference. \u201cBut I was happy for myself that I didn\u2019t have to go and, like, send it again for the third run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gu laughed. She gets it. More than the medalists themselves, the real winner on this day, all agreed, was women\u2019s skiing.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid I want to land a second and third run? Yes. Did I have plans to do bigger and better tricks? Yes. But can I be at all disappointed or feel in any way except for immensely proud? No,\u201d she said. \u201cThe first run I landed was the run I came here to do. I\u2019m proud of my skiing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are literally watching women\u2019s skiing evolve in real time, and how special is that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By EDDIE PELLS LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) \u2014 The nickname for the trick is \u201cdisaster.\u201d\u00a0Freeskiing star Eileen Gu\u00a0saw it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[4173,184,7,402,181,10012,395,101,396,103,102,104,106,105,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-171856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-2026-winter-olympics","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-inside-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-peninsula","15":"tag-san-francisco","16":"tag-san-francisco-county","17":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","18":"tag-san-francisco-news","19":"tag-sf","20":"tag-sf-headlines","21":"tag-sf-news","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}