Gu Ailing earns second-straight Olympic slopestyle silver at 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics

For Chinese freestyle skiing superstar Gu Ailing, a return to Italy felt almost autobiographical. She won her first World Cup title on the country's slopes as a 15‑year‑old, but fate served up a familiar sting at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. She again finished as runner‑up in the women's slopestyle final on Monday, beaten by the same rival who denied her at Beijing 2022, Switzerland's Mathilde Gremaud.

Gu set the early standard with an ultra‑technical opening run worth 86.58 points, edging Gremaud's total of 83.60. But she was not able to better that mark, as a bobble on the opening rail in her second run left her score unchanged, while the defending champion improved to 86.96 points, wresting away the lead.

The final round was even crueler. Gu fell on her last attempt and picked up just 1.65 points, handing Gremaud a successful title defense.

The result proved to be a bittersweet coda in the aftermath of a turbulent period. A shoulder injury and training accident in New Zealand curtailed Gu's time on the slopes, while also dealing a blow to her confidence, as she was forced to miss last year's World Championships and Harbin Asian Winter Games.

Rather than surrender, she mapped out a stout comeback – a December halfpipe win on home snow at the Secret Garden Resort in Zhangjiakou's Chongli District and, in January, a slopestyle victory in Laax that marked her 20th World Cup title. But even her Olympic qualifying run told the story, as Gu fell on the first attempt before answering with a strong second effort, moving up to second place in the rankings.

But in the end, she could not exorcise the slopestyle ghosts of Beijing 2022, leaving Milano Cortina 2026 with a second straight Olympic silver in the event. Nonetheless, her ledger is formidable – an Olympic haul that now contains two golds and two silvers, while remaining the undisputed face of China's freestyle skiing park scene.