ESPN honored Eileen Gu, who renounced her U.S. citizenship to compete for China in the Olympics last year, at the 2022 ESPYS on Wednesday night.
“After winning three medals at the Olympics, Eileen Gu takes home the prize,” the organization tweeted. Gu was awarded the Best Breakthrough Athlete award.
ESPN just gave an ESPY for “Breakout Athlete” to Eileen Gu, who chose to compete for communist China rather than Team USA during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Maybe we should give an award like that to American athletes who don’t support China pic.twitter.com/WMLMdp5usQ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 21, 2022
ESPN gave the ESPY for “Breakthrough Athlete of the Year” to Eileen Gu, the skier who grew up in San Francisco, is a current student at Stanford, but renounced her U.S. citizenship to complete for China at the Olympics last year. pic.twitter.com/3EwdtI1o9D
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 21, 2022
“I also wanna share this moment with all the incredible pioneering female athletes who have come before me, who paved the way for people like me,” Gu said while accepting her award. (RELATED: REPORT: Skier Jen Hudak Calls Out American Who Is Competing For China, Says It ‘Seems Opportunistic’)
After thanking her mother for showing her “what it means to be a strong empowered woman,” Gu closed her speech with some words in Chinese.
“I have decided to compete for China in the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics,” Gu, whose mother was born in China, said in a June 2019 Instagram post. “I am extremely thankful or U.S. Ski and Snowboard and the Chinese Ski Association for having the vision and belief in me to make my dreams come true.