As an American-born Chinese, Olympic gold medalist Gu Ailing hopes to spread a nutritious lifestyle and carry the globe closer alongside one another.
by Martina Fuchs
GENEVA, April 2 (Xinhua) — Next her historic functionality at the Beijing 2022 Wintertime Olympics nabbing two gold medals and a single silver, Chinese freestyle skier and sports activities feeling Gu Ailing claims she’s on a new mission to unfold a healthful way of life and convey the planet closer together.
Asked about how she feels about staying a function product and owning impressed tens of millions of Chinese to master wintertime sports and strike the slopes, the world’s finest freestyle skier and China’s new athletics icon shared her ideas with Xinhua in an job interview through video backlink.
“It truly is a substantial honor to be capable to have the reach that I have now, to be capable to have so several folks who probably have never ever even read of freestyle snowboarding right before, and to be in a position to hear it for the 1st time from me, a youthful biracial lady,” she stated on the sidelines of an function in Beijing by luxury Swiss look at producer IWC Schaffhausen.
A single of the most watched athletes at this year’s Winter season Online games, Gu turned the initial freestyle skier to gain a few medals at one Olympics: halfpipe gold, large air gold, and slopestyle silver.
“My major intention is to inspire more children in China, in particular younger girls to listen to about free of charge skiing and to test it out for on their own,” the new Olympian said.
According to China’s National Bureau of Data, over 346 million Chinese folks have participated in winter season sporting activities actions given that Beijing’s thriving bid for the 2022 Wintertime Olympics in 2015.
Further than Sports: ON A Greater MISSION
Gu, who is also a vogue design and incoming University college student and counts 6.5 million followers on China’s Weibo and 1.5 million on Instagram, has attracted an at any time-developing listing of Chinese and overseas shopper models that are eager to have her as an ambassador.
Intercontinental brands such as French luxurious conglomerate Louis Vuitton and Chinese sportswear maker Anta are by now operating with her, while world-wide endorsements contain names ranging from IWC Schaffhausen, Victoria’s Key, Tiffany & Co. to Oakley.
She underlined that she needed to use her large social media next to make a optimistic effect in culture.
“I’m focusing on making use of my voice and the system that I acquired from the Olympics to be equipped to continue on endorsing skiing and a healthy life-style that consists of altering natural beauty benchmarks, marketing confidence and wellbeing rather of starving by yourself or not being capable to go outside. This is portion of my information appropriate now, and I’m talking out on it whenever I can.”
“I usually want to communicate out about wellness. I want to market sporting activities. And I just want every person to be assured and pleased,” Gu stated, introducing that she could also take into consideration arranging competitions and camps for ladies in China further down her road.
Sports HAVE NO BOUNDARIES
“At any time given that I was very little, I have usually claimed I’m Chinese even though I am in China, and I’m American when I am in the U.S.. I sense as although each countries have contributed similarly to developing the human being that I am nowadays. There’s no sense of competitiveness. There’s no feeling of one particular is improved than the other,” she highlighted.
“It really is about appreciating distinctive aspects of each and every a person and implementing the most appropriate and the most, the parts I can discover the most from each and every culture and I assume that is what has given me the standpoint that I have. It really is given me the cultural resiliency that I have, and it can be supplied me an appreciation for different cultures all over the world. In that sense, I come to feel a deep perception of regard and appreciation for both of those cultures.”
Gu, quickly switching involving her Beijing dialect and California accent during the interview, stated that she hoped to create a lot more bridges amongst distinct cultures by athletics.
“Sports have no boundaries. They don’t have age, gender, race or cultural boundaries. Everyone can participate. That’s the easiest way to type a interaction in between unique nations around the world, and to foster interconnection.”
Enthusiasm FOR Food
Gu has also manufactured headlines for her appreciate for foodstuff, after her online video of munching on a common Chinese snack “jiucai hezi,” a pan-fried dumpling filled with chives and vermicelli noodles, while waiting for her rating in the slopestyle qualifying round went viral on Chinese social media.
“Dumplings are my beloved Chinese food items, but it has to be the do-it-yourself variety. For Western meals, everything with truffles, truly. I have been a truffle admirer endlessly. I journey with my personal white truffle oil.”
“Any time that I used in China, I’m usually mastering more. Simply because China’s this kind of a numerous location with so lots of regional dialects, distinct varieties of foods, unique cultural nuances,” Gu emphasized.
“1 of the factors I adore the most about China is foodstuff and specially food culture. Like the massive spinning desk and all people has the dishes on the desk and you all share anything. That is so substantially much better than just purchasing just one dish.”
“You can find so substantially a lot more diversity and much more options to attempt every little thing and the perception of shared culture and shared time and shared satisfaction of foods is a thing that I feel is deeply representative of the Chinese lifestyle,” she explained.