Chinese state media is enchanted with gold medalist skier Eileen Gu, the American-born freestyle champion who turned her back on the United States to represent the genocidal Communist tyranny at the Olympics.
Chinese outlets swooned when Gu fired back at President Donald Trump for criticizing another freestyle skier, Hunter Hess, for his anti-American comments to the press.
Hess launched the war of words on Friday, when he said it was a “little hard” for him to “wear Team USA gear” because he was not “the biggest fan” of federal efforts to enforce immigration law.
“Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.,” he said, prompting calls to cut him from the U.S. Olympic team.
President Trump responded by calling Hess a “real Loser” for saying “he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics.”
“If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this,” Trump wrote.
When reporters asked Gu to comment on the exchange on Monday, she replied: “I’m sorry that the headline that is eclipsing the Olympics has to be something so unrelated to the spirit of the Games. It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be.”
“The whole point of sport is to bring people together. One of the very few common languages, that of the human body, that of the human spirit, the competitive spirit, the capacity to break not only records, but especially in our sport, literally the human limit. How wonderful is that?” she said.
China’s state-run Global Times framed the exchange as Gu slamming Trump, although her comment could have been taken as chastising Hess as well, since he was the one that brought a domestic political disagreement into the Olympic headlines.
Chinese Communist media is always eager to exploit any social division it can spot in American society, especially when Western media outlets are already throwing gasoline on the fire. Mixing the Olympics with the immigration debate was irresistible to the Global Times:
The AFP said that several athletes’ ire at the 2026 Winter Games has been the US crackdown on immigration, in particular the tactics adopted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, following fatal shootings of two protesters by federal officers in Minneapolis last month which has sparked outrage in the US.
Hess’ teammate Chris Lillis echoed similar sentiments while emphasizing his pride in competing for Team US. He said that athletes are often hesitant to speak up publicly about politics and feels “heartbroken about what’s happened in the US,” according to media reports.
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In response to Trump-Hess spats, US snowboarder Bea Kim expressed support to Hess on Monday. She said athletes had a right to voice their opinions. “We need to lead with love and compassion, and I’d love to see more of that,” the New York Times reported.
Among the many absurdities of this controversy is that China allows virtually zero immigration, and treats violators of its border control policies far more harshly than any American law enforcement agency. If a Chinese Olympic athlete decided to criticize those policies in a press conference, they – and probably their entire family – would swiftly disappear into a prison camp.
This is not a hypothetical point, because a famed Chinese athlete who criticized Communist Party officials was indeed made to disappear: tennis star Peng Shuai, who was dragged off for re-education after accusing a senior government official of raping her. Four years later, she remains thoroughly silenced, her whereabouts and health uncertain. The world has largely forgotten about the erased Chinese star, and athletes like Hunter Hess and Eileen Gu do not seem interested in criticizing Beijing for its treatment of her.
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