At the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics this month, two U.S.-born athletes of Chinese descent—Alysa Liu representing the United States and Eileen Gu competing for China—have become the focus of an online political storm that extends far beyond sports.
A resurfaced video circulating on X shows the two celebrating their athletic achievements together at a community event when they were young in California.
At the time, Liu was 12, and Gu was 14. Years later, both have become elite athletes, but they now compete under different flags, and increasingly, in the eyes of some commentators, different political camps.
Gu is a freestyle skier, and Liu is a figure skater. While the two have never faced off in competition, their contrasting paths have taken on symbolic weight amid heightened U.S.-China tensions. Online debates have framed their choices as reflections of broader ideological divides between Washington and Beijing….
Olympic Spotlight on Alysa Liu and Eileen Gu Ignites US-China Political Debate
