LIVIGNO, Italy (AP) — Eileen Gu skied backwards out of the slopestyle starting gate, jumped onto the first rail, did a 270-degree spin and landed on the snow. Then, she fell.
For the next hour, as she prepared for her second, final and now excruciatingly pressure-packed chance to keep all her Olympic goals alive, she kept telling herself, “there’s no time anymore, like, this is it.”
One of the shining stars of these Winter Games stared down the specter of being eliminated in her very first event Saturday, delivering a clutch performance in a qualifying session that produced way more drama than expected.
“I went through the five stages of grief, first,” Gu said of the reaction after her fall. “It was, like, confusion, maybe depths of despair, perhaps a conniption. And then by the end of it, I ended in this flow state.”
That drama began six seconds in, when Gu, who four years ago became the first action-sports athlete to win three Olympic medals at the same Games, landed at a strange angle off the very first feature on the trickier-than-expected rails portion, then went skittering into the snow.
Her score: a laughable 1.26 on a 100-point scale. At the bottom of the hill: confusion.
Her mother, Yan, asked if she felt sleepy for the 10:30 a.m. start, or if her blood sugar was low. She loaded her daughter up with some dried fruit and sent her back up the mountain for one of the longest hours of her life — waiting for a second, decisive run that would determine whether the quest to go 3 for 3 again at the Olympics would remain in tact.
“I sank deep into myself,” Gu said. “I went deep into the pit of my stomach and I found my flow state and I told myself that I have worked so ridiculously hard. It’s not that I love skiing, I’m obsessed with it and I’ve lived and breathed this.”
Then, suddenly, a feeling of calm, and Gu thought “if there’s anyone to bet on now, I’d bet on myself.”
“I just told myself, ‘I love myself, I trust myself, I love this sport and I am the best,’” said the 22-year-old, who was born in America but competes for her mother’s homeland, China. “Like, I can land, and by the time I got to the gate, there was zero doubt in my mind that I was going to land. No doubt at all.”
Though anything but routine, that second run certainly looked it. Her score of 75.30 put her in second place and that held up among the 23 women seeking 12 spots in Monday’s final.
The only better score was posted by Mathilde Gremaud of Switzerland, who nailed her first run and didn’t have to worry. Gremaud’s narrow victory in China four years ago was the only thing that stood between Gu and three gold medals instead of two and a silver.
“Honestly, the stress level today was really low,” Gremaud said.
Easy for her to say.
What nearly ruined this day for the sport’s biggest name — and what will probably make the difference in the final — was a rail section that is proving more difficult than that at an average World Cup course.
The first rail — the one Gu fell on — is bigger than what these skiers are used to. The distance between the second and third rails is shorter than usual, which can make for issues gathering speed. All this, plus the fact that Gu has been reworking her rails routine in advance of Milan Cortina made this daunting. The trick she fell on was the first time she’d ever tried it in a contest.
But on the second run, Gu nailed that trick and showed a skill set that not everyone in this sport has by spinning all four ways — left and right, going forward and backward — on and off those features. Her ability to pull that off again, and do it with even more rotations than she showed off Saturday, could be the difference between gold, silver — or nothing.
That’s for Monday.
On this day — a bluebird day at the Livigno Snow Park frosted with a heavy dose of drama — a huge sigh of relief. Gu said she watched video of the first run on her phone and didn’t really recognize the skier there.
“I think there was just this moment of hesitation, uncertainty,” Gu said. “I looked a little fragile, a little uncertain, and I just kind of needed to knock some sense into myself, be like, ‘Remember who you are and get it together.’”
Defending champ Hall one of three Americans through men’s qualifying
Alex Hall will get to defend his Olympic title after finishing eighth in men’s qualifying.
He was one of three Americans to make it through. Konnor Ralph finished 10th and the most stressful ride of all belonged to Mac Forehand who, like Gu, fell on his first run and had to wait an hour for his second chance. He nailed it and ended up sixth.
“The nerves were so heavy, I’ve never been so nervous for a contest before,” Forehand said. “But I landed it and it all worked out.”
Birk Ruud of Norway had the best score after the two qualifying runs.
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AP Sports Writer Joseph Wilson contributed to this report.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics