Eileen Gu: US-China tension is trickiest slope for Olympic free skier

Key Facts

A San Francisco native who learned to ski on the pristine slopes of California's Lake Tahoe, she is representing China, not the USA, in the Olympics - a move that has come at a sensitive time for Sino-American relations, and has inevitably placed Ms Gu at the centre of a global debate on geopolitics and representation.
In making the announcement, Ms Gu - the daughter of an American father and first-generation Chinese immigrant mother - said she wanted "the opportunity to help inspire millions of young people during the Winter Olympics in Beijing - my mother's birthplace".
The Chinese Consulate General in New York told the BBC that Ms Gu would have to have been naturalised or gained permanent residency status in China to compete for its team.
Image source, Getty Images But regardless of what is stated on her official papers, she faces difficult questions as an athlete born in America, living the life of a Western teenager - yet representing a country whose government has been widely criticised for human rights violations and anti-democratic crackdowns.