Speaking eloquently to her schoolmates in America about the disparity between men and women in sports, an 11-year-old Eileen warned of the bumpy road ahead that is life.

“My experiences have made me more tenacious, and taught me to meet my setbacks in life with open arms… however, there is no way I could have done it without my supportive mother always behind me,” she said.

Four years later in 2019, when the teenager switched teams to represent China, the US ski federation called it a “tough decision for us”, saying “we spoke at length with Eileen, her mom and her coaches”.

But who exactly is Gu Yan?

She was born in Shanghai to two government engineers: her mother worked at the Ministry of Transport while her father was the chief electrical engineer of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Ms Gu was a biology graduate from China’s prestigious Peking University.

At 22, she left for the United States to pursue a master’s degree in molecular biology at Auburn University in Alabama. She also earned an MBA from Stanford University, said a 1998 Chinese magazine article titled From Wall Street To China.

She built a successful career in finance as a venture capitalist specialising in China. In 1997, she founded a company which was aimed at building a Silicon Valley for China but public records show that Oriental Weibo International Information Technology has folded.

She started several new businesses including DreamComeGu in 2019. According to her LinkedIn profile, she owned the company as a “private investor and expert in China investment”.

As a mother, Ms Gu has refused to speak on the record about her daughter unless she is allowed to review the article before it is published.

Her daughter’s American agent Tom Yaps told The Economist newspaper that the mother was being extra cautious because of political sensitivities. “One thing and a career is ruined,” he said.

And Ms Gu knows the value of her daughter’s career – it is possibly her biggest investment to date.

The teenager’s face is all over the streets of Beijing, endorsing brands both local – such as coffee chain Luckin and e-commerce platform JD.com – and international – like Tiffany & Co and Louis Vuitton.”

Chinese sports industry website SportsMoney.cn put the total value of her endorsements at around 220 million yuan (S$46.6 million).

It is believed that her mother, through her Chinese connections, arranged for Gu to be in a rare meeting of winter sports athletes with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019.

The teenager is not mentioned by name in photographs of the event, which are still on state media websites. The images show the skier in a Team China jacket, standing in the front row as the president addresses the crowd.

Weeks later, she announced her decision to represent China.

But the skier is keen to frame the decision as one about culture and sentimentality, and about promoting the sport, preferring to leave geopolitical tensions out of it.

While questions about her nationality, her mysterious father and the reasons behind her decision continue to swirl, what is clear is that the teenager has inherited her mother’s tenacity and savvy.

Hugely popular on both Chinese social media platform Weibo and Instagram, Gu has an intrinsic understanding of the different approaches needed on both platforms.

On Instagram, where she recently crossed one million followers, she is a cool freestyle skier who also models, posting pictures of her photoshoots and ski runs.

But on the Chinese Internet, she is passionate about her mother’s homeland, cooks with her grandmother and speaks fluent Mandarin. She has 4.5 million fans on Weibo alone.

At Tuesday’s (Feb 8) post-event press conference, Gu spoke of her mother’s support and how she spends “25 to 30 per cent of every year in China”.

“I’m fluent in Mandarin and English, I’m fluent culturally in both. I have family coming from Beijing, my mom grew up in Beijing,” she said.

Talking about food her Chinese grandmother makes, she said taking part in the Beijing Olympics gives her a sense of “coming home”.

Pressed repeatedly about her nationality, she turned to an oft-repeated phrase about feeling Chinese in China and American in the US. But with an added twist this time.

“No matter what I say, if people don’t have a good heart, they won’t believe me, because they can’t empathise with people who do have a good heart,” she said as her mother looked on.

“So in that sense, I feel as though it’s a lot easier to block out the hate now. And also, they’re never going to know what it feels like to win an Olympic gold medal.”

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

Text by: Elizabeth Law/The Straits Times

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