Freeskiing
Eileen Gu is so good she can win freeski world titles without using poles
Teenage freeskiing sensation Eileen Gu's record haul is already impressive, but it becomes remarkable when you consider she's won world titles while injured.
That Eileen Gu won two gold medals and a bronze at the recent World Championships at the age of 17 was impressive enough.
That she did so competing without poles for the first time in her career after fracturing a finger and tearing the UCL in her thumb makes the feat all the more remarkable.
The teenager has been enjoying the season of her young career, having emulated her X Games double gold and bronze at the Worlds as it reached its conclusion in Aspen, Colorado, USA.
But putting injury to one side as well as skiing without poles proved, in many ways, as much a mental challenge as a physical one for her to overcome.
“I’m really superstitious,” she explained. “So, before dropping in the halfpipe I have to do two pole taps behind me and then two leg taps, two shoulder lift things and shake my head either side – it’s just a little drop-in routine that I have.
Not having poles totally shook me up…
“Not having poles totally shook me up and my first day I was dropping into halfpipe without poles was my qualifier event and I barely made it into the finals.”
The adrenaline was coursing through her veins, but her performance was just enough to sneak into the finals in the second last spot. Showing her adaptability to her new pole-less runs, she recovered admirably to take home the gold.
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” she said, “and then I ended up winning in the finals. It threw me off mentally not having poles. It’s something that’s taken me a minute to get used to, but now that we’re past this event, we can safely say I’ve adapted.”
It threw me off mentally not having poles...
Gu is currently competing with a cast on her right hand, helping give protection to a fractured metacarpal on her right index finger as well as the torn UCL on the thumb of the same hand.
With the cast, it means holding poles are an impossibility, the impact of which was also physical.
“I’ve never competed without poles before and I almost always train with poles,” she said. “One [effect] is physical, especially on rails, the balance aspect definitely threw me off.”
There are few signs – on the evidence of Aspen at least - that either the injury or the lack of poles are holding back Gu, who is planning to compete in the same manner for the final World Cup competitions of her season.
It took Eileen Gu a while to get used to not having poles
© Getty Images
But she admitted that when the season was over, “I’m going to have to get surgery on my thumb”.
Explaining the reasoning for delaying undergoing the surgeon’s knife, she said: “I’m getting another MRI and X-ray on it because I did fall on it during Big Air training, so we’ll have to see how that affected it.
“That means six weeks off after surgery, so that’s why I’m competing with a broken hand. In order to get that competition experience, I kind of need to do it now especially in the lead-up to the Olympics. I’m just going to wait until the end of the season and get recovered before the end of this year.”
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