Eileen Gu Breaks Olympic Record with Halfpipe Performance

Stanford's Eileen Gu came into Sunday's freeski halfpipe event already declared as the most decorated women's freeskier in history. She added to that total on the final day of the Olympics, winning the gold, while fellow Stanford undergrad Zoe Atkin took home the bronze in her only event of these games.

The finals had been delayed a day due to heavy snow on the Italian Alps on Saturday, which made the anticipation grow for both competitors. Gu had said earlier in the week that the turnaround from slopestyle to the halfpipe was "unfair" and that she felt punished for competing in three events, not being able to train fairly for the third event. She took it out on the competition on Sunday.

While taking the gold is what the headlines will read, Gu was also told not long after she finished the event that her Grandmother, Guozhen Feng, had died. Gu told the Associated Press, "She was a steam ship. This woman commanded life, and she grabbed it by the reins, and she made it into what she wanted it to be."

Her mother and grandmother are a big part of the reason that Gu competes for the Chinese National Team, with the goal of inspiring young Chinese girls, who have fewer role models to look up to.

Gu makes Olympic history

With the gold medal win, Gu has now broken the record with her third Olympic gold medal in freeskiing, after winning two in 2022. She put up a ridiculous 94.75 score on her third and final run to earn the gold. Gu's Olympic teammate Li Fanghui, also of Team China, won the silver with a score of 93, with Atkin finishing with a 92.5, earning bronze.

THE GOLDEN RUN FOR GU. 🥇

Eileen Gu puts down a massive 94.75 in her final run to secure halfpipe GOLD! pic.twitter.com/lO0eC0nmQV
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 22, 2026

"I can’t put it into words. It’s such a special feeling. I grew up in a male dominated sport, I was the only girl in my ski team until I was 15 years old,” Gu told Olympics.com. "So today to stand here before you and be able to say I’m the most gold-medal holding freeski athlete ever, male or female, and most decorated is pretty surreal."

Great Britain's medal total was improved with Atkin's finish, bring their total to five total medals on the snow in Milan. Atkin also follows in her sister's footsteps, as her sister Izzy won the bronze at the PyeongChang, becoming Great Britain's first Olympic medalist on skis.

The competition for which bronze medal is more significant will now rage on, with Atkin even joking, "I definitely think we should weigh them and see which one is heavier." If it helps in determining who is "better," Zoe's 92.5 score is well above the 84.60 her sister received.