Eileen Gu looks more than ready to add to her medal collection at the Beijing Olympics. The free skating star, who was raised in the United States but chose to represent China, easily topped Thursday’s qualifier for the semi-tube final.
Gu got 95.50 in the second round on Thursday and the only score was higher than the 93.75 she got in her first round. Canada’s second-placed qualifier Rachel Karker scored a best result of 89.50. In third place was Kelly Seldaro of Estonia, who settled on her initial score of 87.50 and passed the second round.
Other players who finished in the top 12 out of 20 contenders and moved into Friday’s final were Hannah Faulhaber, Britta Sigourney and Karlie Margulies. The other member of Team USA, Devin Logan, finished 13th, having just dropped out of the qualifying spot.
Canada’s Cassie Sharp, the 2018 half-pipe gold medalist, finished sixth in the qualifying. Gu was joined by two other Chinese athletes, Zhang Qixin and Li Fangui.
Gu, 18, previously won Gold in the big air And Silver in the slope In this Olympic Games. In an interview with NBC after her second round on Thursday, she made an ominous remark to her halfpipe rivals when he suggested that some of them might have been saving their best tricks for the final.
“I’m not going to do all of it either,” said Joe slyly.
“I mean, I have a few other tricks I’d like to have the chance to do, but also considering it’s the Olympics, I definitely wanted to be consistent and do my best,” she continued. Joe said the Halfpipe event was “it’s all about the fun—it’s all about pushing myself and pushing boundaries.”
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