Eileen Gu Is Golden Again at the Beijing Olympics After Win in the Freeski Halfpipe

The "Genocide Olympics" end tonight. Thank God! 

And now Eileen Gu/Gu Ailing's being hailed --- after wining three medals --- as the most successful athlete at the Winter Games. 

I didn't see it, but #EileenGuTraitor might as well have been trending on Twitter.

At WSJ, "She will leave Beijing as the first athlete—man or woman—to win three freestyle skiing medals in a single Olympics":

ZHANGJIAKOU, China—Eileen Gu snapped up another gold medal for Team China at the freestyle skiing halfpipe event on Friday, capping off the 18-year-old’s first Olympics with three medals (two golds and a silver) and cementing herself as the belle of the Games in the host country.

She will leave Beijing as the first athlete—man or woman—to win three freestyle skiing medals in a single Olympics. The big air event, in which Gu won a surprise gold, debuted at these Games. Gu earned a silver medal in the slopestyle event earlier this week.

Gu’s performance was so dominant that her final trip down the halfpipe was a de facto victory run, as her 95.00-point second run was the highest in the field by nearly five points. Defending gold medalist Cassie Sharp of Canada attempted a third run with the highest degree of difficulty of any competitor in the field, but fell short, earning 90.75 points—placing her in silver medal position. Rachael Karker, also of Canada, took bronze with a 87.75-point run.

Of all the medals Gu won in Beijing, her gold on Friday was the most expected. Across five competitions during the 2021-22 season, Gu was undefeated in the event. She made her victory on Friday all but a foregone conclusion with a solid first run that scored 93.25 and vaulted her to the top of the standings. When it came time to climb the podium, she did so wearing an Anta-branded panda hat, a nod to the Beijing Olympics’ pudgy panda mascot Bing Dwen Dwen.

“I have an Olympics panda hat. This is the coolest thing ever,” Gu said, pointing to the Bing Dwen Dwen mascot sewn on the left side of her hat. “Bing Dwen Dwen is very hard to get now so I want to wear it and show off,” she said in Mandarin. The skiing supernova spent nearly an hour walking through the mixed zone to take questions from broadcast and print media. Looking back at her two-week Olympic run fraught with both plaudits and controversies, Gu said: “These few weeks have been emotionally the highest I have ever been and the lowest I have ever been.”

“At the end of the day, I feel very proud, and feel very grateful for the people who have supported me. And for the people who don’t support me, I’ve actually genuinely made peace with it. I’ve dismissed it,” she said.

“My motto is now if they don’t think I’m doing good in the world, then they can go do better,” she added.

Though the score from her first run was high enough to win the competition, Gu improved upon her margin on the second run. She laid down a more difficult final trick involving twists on two different axes and put up 95.25 points. It was the third-highest score she has posted this season, having put up 97.50 points at a World Cup event in California in January.

“She’s competing against herself now,” said the announcer at the Genting Snow Park, as Gu readied for her second run. Starting last in a field of 12 women, her score from the first run topped the field even after the other 11 women had completed two trips down the pipe.

After Sharp failed to top Gu’s score during her third run, despite landing a combination of tricks that no other woman in the field attempted, Gu just needed to wait for two more skiers to throw down. Estonia’s Kelly Sildaru, bronze medalist in the women’s slopestyle competition earlier in the week, scored 85 points; Karker fell.

With a gold medal assured, Gu appeared visibly emotional ahead of her third and final run. She slid down the halfpipe with a few effortless tricks, appearing to have fun by posing with her poles between spread legs after catching big air and whizzing to the bottom to a euphoric home crowd.

Remi Lindholm: Finnish Cross-Country Skier Gets Frozen Penis During Race at Winter Olympics

Umm, definitely not optimal. 

Yikes!

At CNN, "Cross-Country Skier Remi Lindholm Suffers Frozen Penis":

Lindholm explained that he used a heat pack to try to thaw out his appendage once the race was over.

Well, that was a hard one! 

Eileen Gu or the Chained Woman?

I've already blogged about Eileen Gu, but nothing like this. 

There are at least 600,000 million Chinese living in abject poverty, but Chairman Xi can't let the cat out of the bag. So, Ms. Gu is promoted to the top of Wiebo while human-trafficking victim Xiaohuamei (little flower plum) is censored and crushed under the boot-heel of totalitarianism.

Absolutely unreal story. I already loathe China. I'm to the point of no longer reporting on the regime because it makes me furious. The diabolical hypocrisy is stunning. Americans like Eileen Gu to the cretins of the International Olympic Committee --- with this whole Olympics propaganda regime --- have blood on their hands. And that's to say nothing of the Chinese Communist Party thugs who should be destroyed rather than coddled. This is all so sickening, even anti-American. 

At the New York Times. "Who Is the Real China? Eileen Gu or the Chained Woman?":

Two women have dominated Chinese social media during the Beijing Winter Olympics.

One is Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old skier born and raised in California who won a gold medal for China. The other is a mother of eight who was found chained around her neck to the wall of a doorless shack.

The Chinese internet is exploding with discussions about which of the two represents the real China. Many people are angry that the government-controlled algorithms glorify Ms. Gu, who fits into the narrative of the powerful and prosperous China, while censoring the chained woman, whose deplorable conditions defy that narrative.

The two women’s starkly different circumstances — celebrated vs. silenced — reflect the reality that to the Chinese state, everyone is a tool that serves a purpose until it does not.

Whether she wants it, Ms. Gu has become a powerful propaganda tool for Beijing to demonstrate its appeal to global talent and the benefits of being loyal to China. She represents the successful China that Beijing would like the world to admire.

The chained woman represents the poor and backward China that hundreds of millions still inhabit. They sometimes appear in the state media to demonstrate the country’s success in eradicating extreme poverty until their miseries become an inconvenient truth.

“Does Eileen Gu’s success have anything to do with ordinary Chinese?” goes the headline of one viral article that was censored later.

“Can we remember these women while cheering for Eileen Gu?” asks another headline.

“To judge whether a society is civilized or not, we should not look at how successful the privileged are but how miserable the disadvantaged are,” the article said. “Ten thousand sports champions can’t wash away the humiliation of one enslaved woman, not to mention tens of thousands of them.”

The Chinese government doesn’t like where the debate is heading. The juxtaposition of the two women highlights that underneath the glamorous surface of one of the world’s largest economies lie jarring poverty and widespread abuse of women’s rights.

It defeats the purpose of recruiting star athletes like Ms. Gu: to showcase a powerful China with global appeal.

“The reality is that the vast majority of Chinese won’t have the opportunity to become Eileen Gu,” Li Yinuo, founder of a prominent education company in Beijing, wrote in an article. But the tragedy of the chained woman, she wrote, could happen to anyone.

A few hours later, her article was deleted.

Embedded in the debate is a deep disappointment among middle-class Chinese who are usually willing to go along with the government’s narratives but are incensed by the repeated lies, lack of action and subsequent censorship in the case of the chained woman.

They feel that the government is pouring too many resources behind a privileged member of the society while neglecting another member in dire need of help. They’re worried that the latter’s misfortune could happen to them or their daughters.

Many social media users, including some self-claimed nationalistic little pinks, posted a quote from a famous Chinese novel: “I love the country. But does the country love me?”

The story of the chained woman — whose name, according to the government, is Xiaohuamei (little flower plum) — has captivated the Chinese internet since a short video went viral in late January. In it, a middle-age woman with a dazed expression stood in the dark shack with a chain on her neck. Subsequent videos revealed that she had lost most of her teeth and seemed to be mentally disturbed.

The local authorities issued four conflicting statements in the following two weeks. In the latest statement on Thursday, the authorities reported that Xiaohuamei could be a victim of human trafficking and that her husband was under investigation for false imprisonment. The government had denied both earlier.

The fates of the two women converged online last week after Ms. Gu won her gold medal.

At one point, Ms. Gu, who grew up in an upscale neighborhood in San Francisco and represents some of the biggest brands, like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Company, occupied 10 of the 20 hottest hashtags on Weibo. The hashtag about Xiaohuamei was nowhere to be seen, even though many people were still talking about her.

Some social media users were outraged by the lopsided treatment of the two women. They felt that even though they had tried their best to be the obedient and useful tools in the giant machinery of the Chinese state, Xiaohuamei’s tragedy showed that the state won’t necessarily offer them protection...

And watch here, "To give the full story, here is the original video that caused the social media storm, which is still ongoing today (tw distressing content, not sure why the lock is blurred, as if that is the most shocking thing about this video..)."

The Unbearable Pressure of Winning the Olympics (VIDEO)

It's not just the Olympics, of course. But as these games come only once every four years, the pressure to excel and take home medals is astronomical. Most of those competing are kids. I mean, Lindsey Jacobellis, now 36, probably would've retired years ago if she hadn't blown her near-victory run in 2006, 16 years ago, when she was just 19-years-old. (She finally won her gold medal. It's a good thing. Another wipe out in Beijing would have left a permanent scar on her psychiatric frame for the rest of her life.)

And now we have this poor woman Mikaela Shiffrin who, in Beijing, when the pressure was on, just couldn't cut it this one time --- and she'd been dominating her sport for years and has been called one of the world's greatest skiers of all time.

But she's utterly broken, emotionally drained and psychologically mauled, questioning her very life at this point. 

She can barely talk at the video here, her voice starts cracking with sobs, and all the idiot NBC interviewer can ask is, "What are you feeling?" What the fuck  d'you think she's feeling?!!. She said she's questioning the last 15 fucking of her life. My god, no wonder people were up in arms at NBC's merciless coverage of her wallowing in pain --- for a full 20 minutes --- at the side of the course, simply trying to comprehend it all. 

Oh, the agony of defeat. 

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Olympic athletes deal with expectations, which leads to crushing pressure":

The girl who failed… could also fly. pic.twitter.com/EZJVY03DPc

— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin) February 11, 2022

BEIJING — The world’s most famous skier had kicked off her skis and dropped her poles. Sitting alone in the snow, she buried her head in her hands. Other racers zipped past as the women’s slalom event at the Beijing Olympics continued. But Mikaela Shiffrin, who had skidded out of control and missed a gate near the top of the course, did not move. She remained off to the side for 20 minutes.

“There’s a lot of disappointment over the last week,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotions.”

In what will be an enduring if wrenching moment from these Games, her anguish over failing to finish, much less medal, in the second consecutive event in a little over 48 hours highlighted the unrelenting pressure athletes face at a global competition that comes around once every four years.

For some, the Games have become a suffocating crucible that drains much of the joy from the sport they love.

Even before arriving in Beijing, the 26-year-old Shiffrin acknowledged the Olympics are often “very uncomfortable the entire time” because athletes “literally feel the expectations from the whole world around you.”

At the figure skating venue, an hour or so to the southeast, California-born Beverly Zhu — competing for China — endured similar heartbreak after falling twice during the women’s team competition. Jamie Anderson, the two-time slopestyle gold medalist, posted a raw message on Instagram after finishing an unexpected ninth.

“At the end of the day I just straight up couldn’t handle the pressure,” she wrote, “had an emotional breakdown the night before finals and my mental health and clarity just hasn’t been on par.”

Even Chloe Kim, who became the first woman to win consecutive halfpipe golds, acknowledged her mental health struggles, telling reporters: “It’s unfair to be expected to be perfect.”

Watching Olympians land a double cork 1620 jump, rocket down the side of a mountain at 90 mph or navigate 16 curves headfirst on a skeleton sled can obscure the reality that they can have ordinary struggles despite their extraordinary ability.

“Pressure can be an asset to people at times, bringing out their best,” said Edward Hirt, a professor of brain sciences and psychology at Indiana University. “Those moments are the ones that we think separate the greats from the rest of the pack. But we also know that those pressures can be debilitating and make you choke. I suspect the pressure mounts as people have been successful in the past.”

The Olympics are a unique stage in that athletes can feel the additional burden of representing their country while receiving more attention, if not scrutiny, than at any other time in their careers. They are hyped relentlessly in this made-for-television spectacle, and sometimes castigated when they do not perform as predicted.

These challenges are heightened in a time of pandemic, when athletes are kept in a bubble, separated from the support of family or friends. They must take daily coronavirus tests amid the lingering worry that a positive result — even a false positive — can knock them out of competition.

“Uncertainty creates a lot of pressure,” said Sian Beilock, a cognitive scientist who is president of Barnard College and author of the book “Choke,” which explores performing under pressure. “We, as normal people do the ‘what ifs,’ Olympians do that, too.”

Lindsey Jacobellis made a late mistake that cost her a gold medal during the snowboardcross race at the 2006 Torino Games that haunted her for years. She won the event Wednesday at age 36 to become the oldest U.S. woman to medal at the Winter Olympics. “Some days, I really don’t like it,” Jacobellis said of the pressure...

 

'Luxury Dream Model' Eileen Gu

I mentioned it the other day, "...she's a freakin' hotsie-totsie high-fashion cover model who's graced the front of Vogue Hong Kong." 

Apparently she's been on the cover of Vogue China's bimonthly edition.

At CNN, "Why Eileen Gu is luxury fashion's dream model":

For followers of freestyle skiing and fashion alike, the buzz surrounding Winter Olympian Eileen Gu at this year's Games has come as little surprise.

The 18-year-old's gold medal performance in the big air competition thrust her into the global spotlight Tuesday, sparking such a furor in China that social media platform Weibo crashed under the weight of interest. But Gu has spent years establishing herself as both a top athlete and a hugely bankable model who appeals to brands in both Asia and the West.

In 2021, as she won gold medals at the skiing World Championships and Winter X Games, Gu was also forging lucrative partnerships with fashion houses and luxury labels. Signing for IMG Models, the agency representing Bella Hadid, Kate Moss and Hailey Bieber, she has penned deals with Louis Vuitton, Victoria's Secret and Tiffany & Co., as well as the luxury Swiss watchmaker IWC and cosmetics brand Estée Lauder, among others.

In fact, the California-born athlete is among the most heavily sponsored athletes at these Olympics. She arrived in Beijing with more than 20 commercial partnerships, ranging from Beats by Dre headphones to Cadillac.

But it is Gu's mass appeal in China, where she is known by her Chinese name Gu Ailing and has been nicknamed the "Snow Princess," that makes her especially valuable to brands.

For the Year of the Tiger, can luxury fashion change its stripes?

Having switched her sporting allegiance to her mother's home country in 2019, Gu's fluency in Mandarin has helped secure her place on Chinese TV ads, billboards and even milk cartons (as the face of Inner Mongolia-based Mengniu Dairy). E-commerce giant JD.com, cafe chain Luckin Coffee and telecoms firm China Mobile are among the growing list of mainland brands that she's modeled for in recent months.

China is on track to become the world's largest luxury market by 2025, according to consulting firm Bain. The Asian edition of marketing and advertising industry magazine Campaign estimated that new endorsements there could be earning the athlete around 15 million yuan ($2.5 million) apiece -- and that was before her gold-medal success.

According to Bohan Qiu, whose Shanghai-based creative agency Boh Project works with major fashion brands, Gu's surging popularity in the country comes at a time when nationalist pride in China has seen "the relevance of Western celebrities" decrease.

"For this generation, a lot of the celebrities here are quite domestic-oriented -- so (Gu) being half-American half-Chinese, and speaking both languages fluently, has a very global appeal," he said over the phone, adding that the country's Gen Z demographic contains "third culture kids" who simultaneously understand Chinese and Western contexts. "She is definitely a once-in-a-decade type of talent."

Gu has coupled big-money deals with reputable magazine features and appearances at A-list fashion shows. Spotted at events like Paris Fashion Week as far back as 2019, she has since been seen on Louis Vuitton's front row and the notoriously exclusive Met Gala, where she arrived on the red carpet wearing a Carolina Herrera bubble dress.

"The fashion world has helped balance my training," she told Vogue Hong Kong, appearing on the cover of the magazine's July issue. "Just like skiing, modeling requires incredible expression and personality. It requires creativity, confidence, and the ability to learn and adapt... The transition between modeling and skiing became a break and a practice for each other that helped me eventually feel more motivated in each area."

Gu has also appeared on the cover of Chinese editions of GQ and Elle. And as guest editor of Vogue China's Gen-Z-focused bimonthly issue, Vogue+, the athlete recently explored the complexities of her identity under the theme "code switch."

"I wanted to explore and showcase the inherently malleable nature of adolescent identities, Gu wrote on Instagram, "a quality I've found myself tapping into time and time again as I display different facets of myself (athlete, model, student, Chinese, American, teenager, writer, public persona, etc) in different environments. Everyone code switches, and I think it's time we start celebrating that multifaceted nature."

Gu's social media is also littered with fashion. Whether posting to Instagram or writing to millions of followers on Xiaohongshu and Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Instagram and Twitter, respectively), her feeds flit between sport and style, with pictures from the slopes posted alongside modeling shots and her latest fashion editorials...

More.

 

China and Russia's 'Alliance Against Democracies' (VIDEO)

This bothers me. 

The entire Beijing "genocide" Olympics bothers me, which is why I'm boycotting the entire fucking thing.

China's a power-hungry revisionist state making fools of the West and colluding with the International Olympics Committee in the aggression, torture, and death that's killing millions in China. The corruption is staggering. No other country even wanted the Winter Olympics this year. The games are international sport's biggest loss leader. The IOC and NBC Sports also colluded to keep $100s of billions rolling in from this cluster of an international competition.

And the athletes? I'm sickened by some of these "dual citizenship" idiots, especially the Chinese-American ice skater, Zhu Yi, born in Los Angeles, who gave up her U.S citizenship to compete for China and ignominiously botched her performance by falling three times on two runs in her free skate competition, then erupting in tears on the ice while being pilloried on Weibo. China can have her.

At least Eileen Gu made us proud she's an American (though I gotta get to the bottom of her citizenship mystery, which bothers me in particular).

In any case, the emerging Beijing-Moscow "axis" is an unwelcomed development on the international scene, to say the least.

At the New York Times, "A New Axis":

The last time Xi Jinping left China was more than two years ago, for a diplomatic trip to Myanmar. Days later, he ordered the lockdown of Wuhan, which began China’s aggressive “zero Covid” policy. By staying home, Xi has reduced his chances of contracting the virus and has sent a message that he is playing by at least some of the same pandemic rules as other Chinese citizens.

Until last week, Xi had also not met with a single other world leader since 2020. He had conducted his diplomacy by phone and videoconference. When he finally broke that streak and met in Beijing on Friday with another head of state, who was it?

Vladimir Putin.

Their meeting led to a joint statement, running more than 5,000 words, that announced a new closeness between China and Russia. It proclaimed a “redistribution of power in the world” and mentioned the U.S. six times, all critically.

The Washington Post called the meeting “a bid to make the world safe for dictatorship.” Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister of Australia, told The Wall Street Journal, “The world should get ready for a further significant deepening of the China-Russia security and economic relationship.”

*****

Ukraine and Taiwan The current phase of the relationship has its roots in Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. The European Union and the U.S. responded with economic sanctions on Russia that forced it to trade more with Asia, Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, notes. China stepped in, buying Russian oil, investing in Russian companies and more.

“The conventional wisdom used to be that Putin didn’t want to get too close to China,” Anton said. That’s no longer the case.

Russia returned the favor in recent years, buying equipment from Huawei, a Chinese tech giant, after the Trump administration tried to isolate the company.

In the grandest sense, China and Russia are creating a kind of “alliance of autocracies,” as Steven Lee Myers, The Times’s Beijing bureau chief, puts it. They don’t use that phrase and even claim to be democracies. “Democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of states,” their joint statement read. “It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their state is a democratic one.”

But the message that China and Russia have sent to other countries is clear — and undemocratic. They will not pressure other governments to respect human rights or hold elections. In Xi’s and Putin’s model, an autocratic government can provide enough economic security and nationalistic pride to minimize public opposition — and crush any that arises.

“There are probably more countries than Washington would like to think that are happy to have China and Russia as an alternative model,” Steven told us. “Look how many countries showed up at the opening ceremony of Beijing 2022, despite Biden’s ‘diplomatic boycott.’ They included some — Egypt, Saudi Arabia — that had long been in the American camp.”

Russia’s threat to invade Ukraine has added a layer to the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. The threat reflects Putin’s view — which Xi shares — that a powerful country should be able to impose its will within its declared sphere of influence. The country should even be able to topple a weaker nearby government without the world interfering. Beside Ukraine, of course, another potential example is Taiwan.

For all these common interests, China and Russia do still have major points of tension. For decades, they have competed for influence in Asia. That competition continues today, with China now in the more powerful role, and many Russians, across political ideologies, fear a future of Chinese hegemony.

Even their joint statement — which stopped short of being a formal alliance — had to elide some tensions. It did not mention Ukraine by name, partly because China has economic interests that an invasion would threaten. The two countries are also competing for influence in the melting waters of the Arctic. And China is nervous about Russia’s moves to control Kazakhstan, where many people are descended from modern-day China.

“China and Russia are competing for influence around much of the world — Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America,” Lara Jakes, who covers the State Department from Washington, said. “The two powers have less than more in common, and a deep or enduring relationship that goes beyond transactional strategies seems unlikely.”

As part of its larger effort to check China’s rise — and keep Russia from undermining global stability — the Biden administration is likely to look for ways to exacerbate any tensions between China and Russia, in Kazakhstan and elsewhere...

Still more.

 

Lots of Questions About Gold Medal-Winning American Skier Eileen Gu -- Skiing for Team China WTAF?!!

I'm hella impressed with this young woman, only 18-years-old (here). 

But she pisses me right the fuck off. She's skis for the genocidal totalitarians in Beijing! She was born in San Francisco, fer cryin' out loud, and she's headed to Stanford in the fall. And she's actually fucking skiing for China?!!

She's allegedly renounced her citizenship, as China *supposedly* doesn't allow dual citizenship and other Americans now competing for China have surrendered their American passports. But she's a freakin' hotsie-totsie high-fashion cover model who's graced the front of Vogue Hong Kong. 

Spoiled brat. Talk about privilege. Smart though. She easily slips questioning about her citizenship status --- and boasts a 1580 on the SAT, so what can you do, I guess?

She's a bonafide champion now, taking the gold medal in the women's big air freestyle last night, in an apparent surprise win, as the big air is not her signature event.

But about that citizenship (arches eyebrow), see the Wall Street Journal, "Eileen Gu’s Beijing Olympics Begin With Gold in Big Air -- And Citizenship Questions":

See what I’m talking ‘bout. Fucking brilliant. 🎿 ⛷ https://t.co/yFjLo0nVeB

— Donald Douglas 📘 (@AmPowerBlog) February 8, 2022

Eileen Gu’s Beijing Olympics Begin With Gold in Big Air—And Citizenship Questions

BEIJING—A surprise gold medal by Eileen Gu, the U.S.-born freestyle skier competing for her mother’s homeland of China, set off jubilation in the Chinese public but spurred renewed questions about her citizenship status.

Gu’s win for China in Tuesday’s big air event secured the country’s third gold medal in these Olympics—briefly putting the country atop the gold-medal count—and came before the U.S. has won any golds.

Gu was a slight underdog to French phenom Tess Ledeux in her Beijing Olympics debut, but won on the third and final run by nailing a trick she had never done before in competition. It featured four-and-a-half horizontal rotations and two flips.

On her final run, Ledeux couldn’t surpass Gu’s feat, and Gu finished with an overall score of 188.25 to Ledeux’s 187.50. Gu grinned and covered her mouth in shock as she watched her score post.

Hundreds of Chinese spectators erupted in cheers at Gu’s victory, some brandishing red and gold placards that read, “Gu Ailing, add oil”—a Chinese phrase of encouragement. Gu Ailing is her Chinese name.

The 18-year-old Gu’s unexpected win swept Chinese social media. On Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, six out of the top 10 trending topics were about her. Hashtags included “Gu Ailing takes on the world’s most difficult jump,” and “Gu Ailing Gold Medal.” Memes and moments of her victory flooded Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

Gu was still coming back to earth when she faced questions in a post-event news conference about her citizenship status. Western reporters asked several versions of the question but Gu deflected each one.

Olympians must be citizens of the nations in which they compete, and China’s policy is not to allow dual citizenship. Yet Gu hasn’t made clear whether she has relinquished her U.S. passport.

On Tuesday, she again emphasized that she considers herself Chinese when she’s in China, where she has spent nearly every summer of her life, and American when she’s in the U.S.

“I don’t feel as though I’m, you know, taking advantage of [China or the U.S.] because both have actually been incredibly supportive of me and continue to be supportive of me,” she said.

“Because they understand that my mission is to use sport as a force for unity, to use it as a form to foster interconnection between countries, and not use it as a divisive force. So that benefits everyone, and if you disagree with that then I feel like that’s someone else’s problem.”

Gu’s decision to compete for China, little-noticed when she made it a few years ago, has spurred controversy in recent days, particularly in the U.S., where she was born and still lives with her mother and grandmother in San Francisco. Some Americans say she is a product of U.S. ski-area infrastructure and instruction, and that her switch to China was motivated in part by gaining access to its vast commercial market.

The ambiguity around Gu’s nationality raises questions about whether Beijing has bent the rules for a top athlete, and whether her star power among some Chinese brands and more nationalistic supporters might suffer if it emerges that she hadn’t given up her U.S. citizenship.

In earlier interviews, Gu had explained her decision to switch national affiliations by saying she felt she could make a greater impact in China than in the U.S., which she felt had no shortage of role models for young people.

Yet these Games—and Gu’s sudden starting role in them—arrived at a time of escalating tensions between China and the U.S., which is carrying out a diplomatic boycott over what it describes as China’s human-rights abuses particularly in its Xinjiang region. Beijing has defended its treatment of Uyghur Muslims there as an effort to combat extremism.

On Tuesday, Gu positioned herself as a unifier of cultures, evading questions about her citizenship status or responding as though they were critiques of her or her mission.

“If other people don’t really believe that that’s where I’m coming from, then that just reflects that they do not have the empathy to empathize with a good heart—perhaps because they don’t share the same kind of morals that I do,” she said.

“And in that sense, I’m not going to waste my time trying to placate people who are, one, uneducated, and two, probably are never going to experience the kind of joy and gratitude and, just, love that I have the great fortune to experience on a daily basis,” she continued.

“If people don’t like me, then that’s their loss. They’re never going to win the Olympics.”

Gu has said she wanted to inspire girls to take up skiing because it has brought her joy and taught her physical and mental toughness.

On Tuesday, Gu also sidestepped questions about the well-being of Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis player at the center of a global firestorm after an allegation of sexual assault against a retired high-level Chinese official appeared on her social-media account in November.

Peng, who along with Olympic officials has since tried to deflect attention from her accusations, was in the audience watching Tuesday’s big air final. Earlier this week, Gu was the only athlete Peng mentioned by name in an interview with French sports publication L’Equipe, referring to her as “our Chinese champion, Eileen Gu, who I like a lot.”

At Tuesday’s post-event news conference, Gu’s interactions with some foreign journalists contrasted with those with their Chinese counterparts. Gu flitted between English and Chinese, which she spoke with a Beijinger’s accent, and said she was “fluent culturally in both.”

One Chinese journalist called Gu a “Beijing girl” and asked about her favorite local cuisine.

“I have eaten a lot of pork and chive dumplings the last few days and I really look forward to trying some Peking duck,” she said in Mandarin...

 

Tamyra Mensah-Stock

Everybody's All-American. 

At Fox News, "Olympic gold medalist wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock: ‘I love representing the US':Mensah-Stock began wrestling in the 10th grade in Katy, Texas."

Tamyra Mensah-Stock wins the gold for this post-match speech giving her success over to God, and praising the opportunity to represent America! She shares a great message for young women striving for excellence, no matter the field. Congrats, Tamyra! #TeamUSA #TokyoOlympics pic.twitter.com/9xetbtettF

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) August 4, 2021

Novak Djokovic Loses, Throws Tantrum in Olympics Farewell

I like the guy, but he's volatile and a sore loser. He hit a line judge in the neck last year. 

He's won three grand slam tournaments this year, and he'd hoped to make this year a "Golden Slam" with another victory in Tokyo.

Now he's out. 

At NYT, "Novak Djokovic, King of the Olympic Village, Loses Run at Golden Slam":

Novak Djokovic was trying to win all four Grand Slam tennis tournaments and the Olympic gold medal in a calendar year. That dream ended with his loss against Germany’s Alexander Zverev. https://t.co/bfd2TNLptg

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 30, 2021

TOKYO — Novak Djokovic’s dream of a Golden Slam ended in the early hours of another thick night at the Olympics, on one last searing winner off the racket of Germany’s Alexander Zverev.

Zverev stormed back from a set and a service break down to beat Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 ranked men’s player, 1-6, 6-3, 6-1, scoring a stunning upset of an all-time great who had seemed nearly invincible lately and well on his way to pulling off a feat no male tennis player had achieved.

Djokovic was trying to win all four Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympic gold medal in a calendar year. He had won the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon and came to Tokyo looking for the fourth jewel. The United States Open takes place at the end of the summer.

Djokovic appeared to be on cruise control when he broke Zverev’s serve to get to within three games of the match in the second set. Zverev swatted a ball skyward in frustration. He appeared destined to meet with a quick end, like Djokovic’s first four victims in Tokyo.

But with little to lose, Zverev began unleashing his booming serve and setting up a series of crushing forehands to take control, and Djokovic started inexplicably spraying his shots off the court.

“Terrible, just terrible,” Djokovic said, when asked how he was feeling at the end of a night that also included a loss in the mixed doubles semifinal.

Djokovic tried to slow Zverev’s momentum with a long bathroom break between the second and third sets, as he has done in tense moments in the past. But it didn’t work and in the two-of-three-set format he did not have the cushion that the marathon afforded during Grand Slam matches, which require three of five sets to win...

Very interesting. 

Apparently Tokyo was an image rehab event for him. Djokvic was even photographed doing the splits with Belgian gymnasts.

Rough life. 

Olympic Games Losing Luster as Stars Struggle

At the Los Angeles Times, "A stormy 24 hours: Stars in unexpected trouble at increasingly turbulent Tokyo Olympics":

TOKYO — These Olympic Games were always walking a tightrope, right from the beginning, teetering on the edge of disaster. From the first positive coronavirus test, there were fears the COVID-19 pandemic might land scores of athletes in quarantine, maybe wipe out an entire event like the men’s 100-meter final.

From the first explosion of fireworks over an empty stadium during the opening ceremony, there were doubts that Tokyo could generate any real buzz without fans in the seats.

But the Games instead are troubled by a different problem. The mental stress that drove Simone Biles to abruptly withdraw from the women’s gymnastics team competition on Tuesday night underscored a more alarming trend.

These Olympics are losing their star power.

Biles was merely the latest marquee name to suffer misfortune in the last few days. American swimmer Katie Ledecky — another ostensible “Greatest of All Time” — finished second in her initial race and fifth in another, before winning a gold medal in her last race Tuesday. Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka, whose face adorns countless billboards and television commercials in this country, was bounced from the women’s draw in the third round.

“I’m disappointed in every loss,” Osaka said, “but I feel like this one sucks more than the others.”

There have been bright moments in Japan. The host nation got early gold from skateboarder Yuto Horigome — another highly publicized athlete here — and in sports such as judo and table tennis. Victories by 17-year-old Alaskan swimmer Lydia Jacoby and Carissa Moore in the inaugural surfing contest provided the American team with highlights.

“It was crazy,” Jacoby said after the surprising 100-meter breaststroke. “I knew I had it in me, but I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal.”

Still, the list of disappointments has run considerably longer.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray of Britain withdrew from singles, deciding to give his body a rest by playing only doubles. Positive coronavirus tests derailed Jon Rahm of Spain, the world’s top-ranked golfer, and Bryson DeChambeau of the U.S., ranked No. 6, before the start of play.

The powerhouse U.S. women’s soccer team has looked shaky, barely escaping pool play with a 0-0 draw against Australia, and the men’s basketball team, stocked with NBA talent, hasn’t played any better.

“I think that’s a little bit of hubris if you think the Americans are supposed to just roll out the ball and win,” Coach Gregg Popovich said...

Still more.

 

Simone Biles' Shocking Exit from Tokyo Olympics

 At NYT, "Russia Wins the Gymnastics Team Final After Simone Biles’s Stunning Exit."

Japan Olympics Diversity

Japan's population is 98 percent Nihon. For reasons of ethnic chauvinism, fear of the outer world (like the U.S. and Commodore Perry's expeditions to that country in 1853-1855), or outright racism, it's unreasonable to expect much "diversity" to be coming to that nation's shores anytime soon.

Frankly, given the above, I'm not sure what's the purpose of this article. *Shrug.*

At LAT, "Tokyo Olympics: Diverse faces are representing Japan. Does it reflect real change?":

TOKYO — With millions around the world watching, Rui Hachimura walked onto the gleaming white floor of Japan’s Olympic Stadium on Friday waving the country’s red-and-white flag.

The 6-foot-8 Washington Wizards forward with a Japanese mother and Beninese father led his nation’s athletes in procession, a beaming smile peeking out of the sides of his face mask. Towering 20 inches over his fellow flag bearer, wrestler Yui Susaki, the 23-year-old’s careful steps signaled a changing face of Japan.

But in an unpopular Games, echoing with protests outside the largely empty Tokyo stadium, the discontent and ire over the influx of foreign visitors in the midst of a pandemic threatened to overshadow the inclusive image Japan had intended with Hachimura.

Even apart from the COVID-19 pandemic, the years and months leading up to the Games have been marked by a series of disappointments over promises to highlight diversity. The planet’s biggest sporting event has been troubled by high-profile resignations following scandals involving sexist and discriminatory remarks. The Olympic moment will come and go with neither a highly anticipated new anti-discrimination law nor immigration policies that reflect Japan’s fast-changing needs and norms.

It has left a conflicted feeling for Japanese like Hachimura or tennis great Naomi Osaka, who lighted the Olympic torch capping Friday’s ceremony, who haven’t always felt accepted. Some Japanese cling to notions of ethnic and cultural homogeneity even as the country needs young people to replace the world’s fastest-aging population. Though cities like Tokyo have become more cosmopolitan over the last half century, only 2% of babies born in Japan have at least one foreign parent.

Athletes like Hachimura are “one of the few people that can bring major changes for us,” said Alonzo Omotegawa, who has a Japanese mother and Bahamian father and has lived in the Tokyo area his entire life. Yet he has been repeatedly told: You are not Japanese.

The 25-year-old English teacher said he questions whether Hachimura’s popularity and symbolism will be enough to stifle the discrimination he faces on a daily basis — change the minds of landlords who refuse to rent to him because of his skin color, children who ask if it will wash off or police who stop and search him without a warrant, saying people with dreadlocks like him “tend to carry drugs.”

“The country is only on our side when it wants to be,” he said.

Organizers devoted a chapter of Friday night’s opening ceremony to a performance featuring children of diverse ethnic backgrounds assembling the Tokyo Olympics emblem. For months, the slogan “Unity in Diversity” had been pasted on posters around the city, projecting at least for the international media that this nation of 126 million was pledging to become more nuanced and accepting.

At the same time, the pandemic, as it has elsewhere, has brought out in Japan suspicion of those who look different, and a fear they may bring danger. That unease has been amplified in recent days as tens of thousands of athletes and others from around the globe have filtered into a nation that had kept its borders heavily restricted, even keeping out many foreign expats who’d long called Japan home.

Gracia Liu-Farrer, a sociologist at Tokyo’s Waseda University who studies migration and inequality in Japan, said of the Olympics: “It’s ironic. It’s not a moment of change but a moment of almost intensification of xenophobia because of this global health crisis.”

Even so, she said, the international attention around the Olympics has led to soul-searching and introspection over discriminatory opinions and remarks that may have previously gone unchallenged. The week before the opening ceremony, a director who’d made a Holocaust joke years ago and a composer who admitted to once bullying disabled classmates stepped down from their roles...

 Still more.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Slams Megyn Kelly Over Naomi Osaka Tweet

Everything's so stupid, especially these summer games (which I'm boycotting, because, well, they're so lame). 

At NBC News, "Sports Illustrated's swimsuit editor calls Megyn Kelly's Naomi Osaka tweet 'unnecessary'":

Let’s not forget the cover of (& interview in) Vogue Japan and Time Mag! https://t.co/PAAUEwAVi0

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 19, 2021

Poor @naomiosaka blocked me while taking a shot at me (guess she’s only tough on the courts). She is apparently arguing that she shot her many covers b/4 publicly claiming she was too socially anxious to deal w/press. Truth is she just doesn’t like Qs she can’t control. Admit it. pic.twitter.com/izyRzOrUVm

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 19, 2021

Shaun White Completes the Comeback (VIDEO)

He won the gold medal last night, and today's he's apologizing for "gossip" comments about sexual harassment allegations?

Politics is the cancer of everything right now.

At LAT, "Shaun White saves best for last to win third halfpipe gold."

And at USA, "Shaun White apologizes for calling sexual harassment allegations 'gossip' after Olympic gold."

ADDED: From Christine Brennan, "As Shaun White cements legacy, why so little attention paid to sexual harassment allegations?" (Via Memeorandum.)

Chloe Kim Steals the Spotlight (VIDEO)

She's a good young lady.

At LAT, "Gold-medal winner Chloe Kim, a daughter of Korean immigrants, is a star in two cultures":

Shortly after winning gold in the Olympic halfpipe, Chloe Kim was ushered into a tent at the bottom of the hill to face a clutch of international reporters.

The 5-foot-3 Southern California snowboarder had delivered a stunning performance, doing tricks no other woman in her sport could do, but that wasn't the only reason she has become the breakout star of the 2018 Winter Games.

When a reporter asked a question in Korean, the 17-year-old quickly waved off the interpreter, saying: "I've got that."

Kim is a first-generation Korean American, the daughter of immigrants who settled in the greater Los Angeles area. She speaks both languages and, throughout her life, has made visits to family in this country.

That helps explain why her face has been splashed across local newspapers and television this week.

"It's so cool being here," she said. "Competing in my first Olympics in the country where my parents came from is insane."

This aspect of her Olympic experience has not only boosted her celebrity, it seems to have touched her in a personal way that extends beyond sport, perhaps helping her to reconcile a childhood spent straddling two cultures.

Kim said: "I definitely, when I was younger, struggled a little to understand my identity and who I wanted to be."

Not all the attention here has focused on her, not in a part of the world that has a reputation for producing, among other things, top-notch short-track speedskaters.

It was a big deal when Lim Hyo-jun earned the host nation's first gold medal in a 1,500-meter race last Saturday. But Kim quickly stole the spotlight with a historic performance at Phoenix Snow Park three days later.

In capturing gold, she became the first woman in Olympic history to land consecutive 1080s — two triple rotations. Her near-perfect score of 98.25 outdistanced silver medalist Liu Jiayu of China by almost 10 points.

"I feel like I got to represent both the U.S. and Korea today," she said.

The feeling, apparently, was mutual.

"The media has given her very glowing coverage because they see her as one of their own," said Peter Kim, a New Jersey native who works as an assistant English professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.

In particular, it seems that people here have responded to reports that her father, trained as an engineer, gave up his career to focus on Chloe and her snowboarding...

When she won the Gold, her dad reportedly said "this makes all the sacrifice worth it."

More.

Ralph Peters on the North Korean Nuclear Crisis and Diplomatic Negotiations (VIDEO)

Well, his analysis is right on, but I was drawn to his very dapper attire. I don't recall Colonel Peters ever looking this sharp, heh!

(I love that spread collar, his tie and knot, and the soft-shoulders on his suit. Nice color coordination as well. Very sharp indeed.)

With Sandra Smith on Fox News:

Ryan Lochte Might Not Be 'Lyin' Ryan' After All

Is the dude getting a bum rap?

Perhaps.

But I don't feel sorry for him. If you're out drunk "carousing" at 4:00am in a Third World Country, bad things can happen. Very bad things. He's lucky things didn't turn out worse.

In any case, Melissa Clouthier cuts the guys some slack, "Feel Sorry for Ryan Lochte."

And see USA Today, "USA TODAY Sports investigation raises questions about Rio cops, Lochte incident."

One thing for sure: He's at the tail end of his swimming career either way, and thus his sponsors are making a rational decision to cut him loose. He might repair his reputation, but I'd be surprised if he returns to his swimming glory days of yore. Never say never, of course. I'll give the guy due props if he makes it to the 2020 Tokyo games.

How to Thank Your Coach After Winning the Gold Medal in Wrestling

It's Risako Kawai of Japan.

Heh.

Pretty good.

At Telegraph UK, "Japanese wrestler celebrates winning gold by slamming coach to the mat, twice."

When you've just won an Olympjc gold in wrestling, this is how to thank your coach. pic.twitter.com/Y5QIuwOWrH

— SimonNRicketts (@SimonNRicketts) August 19, 2016

Aly Raisman and Team #USA Gymnasts at the Beach in Rio

Hey, I'd be hitting the beach after sweeping competitions, too.

Sheesh, they're hot. And good on them, such great representatives of America.

At London's Daily Mail, "Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and  Team #USA gymnasts have a beach day..."

Ryan Lochte Apology

Here's Christine Brennan from yesterday:

Does Ryan Lochte owe Rio and the #Olympics an apology? @cbrennansports says yes! https://t.co/RMYsuxtK8J pic.twitter.com/TWaZIx57VK

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 19, 2016

And here's Locthe's apology:

Here’s #RyanLochte statement on Twitter pic.twitter.com/LWIvrLQf2e

— Ryan Smith (@ryansmithtv) August 19, 2016