Eileen Gu’s return to X Games Aspen superpipe ends much like first — with a gold medal
Basalt's Faulhaber did not compete due to injury
Special to The Aspen Times
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Eileen Gu continued the longest consecutive win streak in women’s halfpipe skiing history on Saturday at Buttermilk Ski Area, but it wasn’t easy.
Skiing through hip pain suffered in an X Games training accident, the 20-year-old freeskier from California — who skis for China — scrawled a message on her hand, “pain is temporary,” as a reminder of what athletes put themselves through in terms of risk and pain at this high of a level. She is the reigning Olympic gold medalist in this discipline, and on Saturday, she showed why she quickly ascended and has remained at the top of her sport.
“If it had been any other contest, I would have pulled out. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,” said Gu, who had been absent from X Games Aspen since 2021, when she won two gold and a bronze medal in her X Games debut.
She withstood a challenge from last year’s winner, Zoe Atkin of Great Britain; both are students at Stanford University. Amy Fraser of Canada won the bronze medal, edging out Winter Park’s Svea Irving on the final run. Last year, Irving nipped Fraser for the bronze medal.
The best of three runs in the pipe determined the winner, and Gu, despite intense hip pain, upped her final run score by a point, to 95.66, over her first-run score. To earn that, she threw down a run that included a back-to-back cork 900s, a right-side 720, and an alley-oop flat spin.
That it came while she was in obvious pain — she said in post-event remarks that it was difficult to walk — was even more impressive.
Basalt’s Hanna Faulhaber, the 19-year-old Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club product and reigning world champion, handed out the X Games medals to the top three finishers. She herself was recently injured while training and did not compete on Saturday.
Runner-up Atkin said she was happy with her medal this year, even if it wasn’t gold.
“Oh my god, I am so excited,” she said. “This means so much to me to go back-to-back. This is my second X Games medal.”
She kept the superpipe event interesting, surging to more than 12 feet high in one of her massive jumps. That helped earn her 90.66 in her best run.
After the final runs were completed, Faulhaber, who is recovering from an ACL, MCL, and lateral meniscus tear, noted, “Everybody just killed it out there.”
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