Eileen Gu becomes the most decorated freeskier in Olympic history

They rescheduled the final event of the Milano Cortina freestyle skiing programme for 24 hours after a snowstorm swept through Livigno on Saturday night. It turned out to be worth the wait. By the time Eileen Gu pumped her poles after landing the final trick of the last run of the last competition of these Games, the 22-year-old had scored 94.75, claimed her sixth Olympic medal, made history as the most decorated freeskier the sport has ever seen — and reduced a sun-drenched Livigno Snow Park crowd to something between stunned silence and pure, uncontained joy.

Gu had been here before, of course. She had stood at the top of the podium at Beijing 2022. She had already banked two silvers at these very Games — in big air and slopestyle — arriving at the halfpipe final as the defending champion, the favourite in the minds of many, and yet very much the underdog on paper after a qualifying session that had sent her crashing to the snow and scrambling to even make the final. That she won — convincingly, beautifully, inevitably — told you everything you need to know about the woman who has come to define a generation of freestyle skiing.

"Five-time Olympic medallist has a nice ring to it," she had said with characteristic confidence after those two silvers. She now has six. The ring, it turns out, sounds even better.

The backstory to this gold medal began on Thursday evening, when qualifying plunged Gu into a crisis she had, by her own admission, experienced before.

Dropping in first under the Livigno lights, the reigning Olympic champion fell on her second trick of her opening run, sprawling across the pipe deck and watching her qualifying campaign begin in the worst possible fashion. It was, as she ruefully acknowledged afterwards, a pattern: she had also crashed in qualifying for the big air and the slopestyle at these Games. "I keep asking myself why I keep falling," she said. "It's a very strange phenomenon, and I would love to get to the bottom of it."

With only two runs available in qualifying, there was no margin for further error. And in the manner that has come to define her, she showed little caution on her next attempt, throwing down a commanding and composed run that earned 86.50 points and fifth place — enough to scrape through to the final by the narrowest of margins. "I'm annoyed that I keep doing this to myself," she said, "but I'm happy that I made it through."

What she was not saying — though the numbers made it plain — was that she had qualified fifth in an event she would go on to win by nearly two points. The gap between Gu in qualification and Gu in a final, when the lights are brightest and the pressure is highest, is the defining characteristic of her career.

While Gu's qualifying drama was the headline on Thursday night, the story with the most heartbreak belonged to someone else entirely.

Cassie Sharpe of Canada sat out the final after a hard crash in Thursday's qualifying round. The 33-year-old from Comox, British Columbia, had arrived in Livigno as one of the most experienced athletes in the field — the 2018 Olympic champion, the 2022 Olympic silver medallist, a two-time podium finisher at consecutive Games. She had placed third in qualifying, looking composed and authoritative before suffering a heavy fall on her second run that saw her stretchered off the course — though she managed to wave to the crowd as she left, a small mercy in a bleak moment. The 2018 Olympic champion and Beijing 2022 silver medallist was not medically cleared for the final after being diagnosed with a concussion. She watched from the stands as her compatriot Rachael Karker, herself a Beijing bronze medallist, went on to finish seventh in her absence. It was a cruel end to what should have been a third Olympic chapter for one of the sport's greats.

Sunday's final began under brilliant Italian sunshine — a welcome contrast to the swirling storm that had forced the postponement — and it was not Gu who set the early pace.

Atkin took the lead after the first run with a smooth performance. Meanwhile, Gu lost her balance on her first trick and cut the run short. It was, to borrow her own phrase, a very strange phenomenon repeating itself in the worst possible moment. The defending champion had crashed in qualifying and now, in the final, she had stumbled again on run one. Atkin, an American-born skier who competes for her father's homeland of Britain, soared high all contest, a staggering 5.4 metres above the pipe at one point.

Gu regrouped. On her second run, she produced a clean, technically demanding pass that was enough to move her to the front of the leaderboard — and then, on the third and final run, she produced the defining moment of the night. She put down an insurmountable 94.75, a score that left the pipe with an authority that suggested she had been saving her very best for last. Gu had already won Olympic silver in the slopestyle and Big Air at these Games, and the 22-year-old saved her best for last when topping the halfpipe podium ahead of compatriot Li Fanghui (93.00).

Team GB's Zoe Atkin (92.50) finished third to collect bronze, eight years after sister Izzy also won bronze in the slopestyle at PyeongChang 2018. The podium was separated by just 2.25 points. In another era, on another night, Atkin's 92.50 would have been a gold medal score. Instead, she took bronze — still remarkable, still historic, still a moment her family will never forget.

There is a particular kind of loss that comes when you are beaten not by someone ordinary, but by someone once-in-a-generation. Zoe Atkin knows it well. The 23-year-old from Britain had arrived in Livigno as the reigning world champion, the Crystal Globe winner, the top qualifier, the woman whom many outside China had picked as the gold medal favourite. She skied brilliantly. She reached 5.4 metres above the pipe — a staggering achievement in itself. She scored 92.50, a mark that would have claimed gold in virtually any other halfpipe final in Olympic history. And she finished third.

Atkin's medal is only Team GB's fifth ever on the snow at a Winter Olympics. For a country not typically associated with Alpine success, it is a landmark achievement. And it came wrapped in a family story: Izzy Atkin, her sister, won bronze in the slopestyle at PyeongChang 2018. Now Zoe has bronze in the halfpipe at Milano Cortina 2026. The Atkin family has now produced two Olympic bronze medallists in two consecutive Winter Games — a statistic that would have seemed fanciful a decade ago.

"She is unreal," said New Zealand's Mischa Thomas of Gu. "It's pretty crazy how good she is. She is Wonder Woman." Nobody who watched Sunday evening's final would argue.

If the night belonged to Gu and the bronze to Atkin, the performance that will linger in the memory as a signpost to the future belonged to someone who had not yet celebrated her seventeenth birthday when these Games began.

Australia's 16-year-old prodigy Indra Brown outlined why she is a future Olympic medal contender with an 87.00 on her final run to finish fifth. Brown had qualified fourth — ahead of the defending champion, ahead of athletes with decades more experience — and carried that form into the final with a composure that belied her age. She had become the youngest Australian in history to claim a World Cup victory at 15, and here, on the grandest stage of them all, she showed again that youth is no barrier when the talent is exceptional. She will be 20 at the next Winter Olympics. Put her name somewhere you can find it.

Another subplot of Sunday's final involved American Svea Irving, granddaughter of the author John Irving, whose brother Birk had competed in the men's halfpipe the previous week. Irving was a "DNS" — did not start — in the second run, then returned for a third run but struggled to complete a manoeuvre and finished in 11th. A competition that had promised much delivered little for the young American, for whom Sunday's final will serve as a lesson absorbed early in what should be a long career.

For Eileen Gu, there are no longer adequate superlatives. She is now the most decorated freeskier in Olympic history after defending her halfpipe crown on the final day of Milano Cortina 2026. Six medals across two Olympic Games — two golds and a silver at Beijing 2022, two silvers and a gold here in Italy. She competes in three disciplines while her rivals specialise in one, gets a fraction of their training time, crashes in qualifying at every single event, and then wins. She is 22 years old and attends Stanford University. She models. She writes. She does things on skis that were previously considered impossible.

She is, as Mischa Thomas said, Wonder Woman. And on the final evening of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, under a blue Italian sky above Livigno Snow Park, she reminded the world exactly why.