The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Printable Version

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Papa John - 02-19-2026

The women's ice hockey final was also amazing, IMO.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Snorlax94 - 02-19-2026

(02-03-2026, 11:16 AM)Papa John Wrote:  Cue Eileen Gu rage in 3...2...1...

Well I wouldn’t want to say I have Eileen Gu “rage,” in fact, I dislike the idea of feeling “rage” toward her, and the reports that she faces threats and violence for her choice horrifies me.

But on the other hand, I guess I’m not “supposed” to be rooting for Alysa Liu, because she goes to UCLA, but I found the way she skates with joy, with authentic happiness, more likeable. That casual champion, who, like a duck on water, seems serene and laid back but underneath is kicking her legs furiously, who represents (imo) Bay Area values, it was actually Alysa Liu who reminded me of the Stanford of old, back when I attended.

And I have to say, I find Eileen Gu too perfectly represents the Stanford of today — financial riches, responses to questions in corporate doublespeak that’s been polished by PR firms, a sort of manufactured to be perfect champion with marketing. And Eileen Gu’s alma mater of today — trying to control things to be a little too perfect, it feels like the lawyers, investors and PR machine run Stanford now.

 I miss the old Stanford.

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SkiBum80 - SkiBum80 - 02-20-2026

(02-19-2026, 11:33 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote:  

(02-03-2026, 11:16 AM)Papa John Wrote:  Cue Eileen Gu rage in 3...2...1...

Well I wouldn’t want to say I have Eileen Gu “rage,” in fact, I dislike the idea of feeling “rage” toward her, and the reports that she faces threats and violence for her choice horrifies me.

But on the other hand, I guess I’m not “supposed” to be rooting for Alysa Liu, because she goes to UCLA, but I found the way she skates with joy, with authentic happiness, more likeable. That casual champion, who, like a duck on water, seems serene and laid back but underneath is kicking her legs furiously, who represents (imo) Bay Area values, it was actually Alysa Liu who reminded me of the Stanford of old, back when I attended.

And I have to say, I find Eileen Gu too perfectly represents the Stanford of today — financial riches, responses to questions in corporate doublespeak that’s been polished by PR firms, a sort of manufactured to be perfect champion with marketing. And Eileen Gu’s alma mater of today — trying to control things to be a little too perfect, it feels like the lawyers, investors and PR machine run Stanford now.

 I miss the old Stanford.

Absolutely agree that Alysa Liu was inspirational to watch skate so well with such joy. 
Her family story also inspirational.
Dad fleeing Communist persecution in China. When Alysa a top skater being deceitfully recruited to ditch USA and represent Team Red,
He told their agents (spy’s) No Way!
Possibly with more colorful language, like Alysa expressed in joy after her win.
To me, that spirit, as Alysa said, that’s what I’m talking about (w/o her extra emphasis).

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - dabigv13 - 02-21-2026

Good article on Zoe Atkin

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7059863/2026/02/21/zoe-atkin-freeski-halfpipe-eileen-gu-winter-olympics-2026/

Quote:A student at Stanford University, majoring in symbolic systems, Atkin has taken cognitive science classes, learning how the mind works. She understands the biological process of fear and how much control you have over your daily experiences, such is the power of the mind.

She recalls one particular class, “How beliefs create reality,” with professor Dr. Alia Crum who spoke about a study that had split people into two groups, one group felt stress inhibited their performance and the other believed stress enhanced it. When completing a task in a stressful situation, those in the group who had a stress-enhancing mindset performed better. The only difference between the two groups was their mindset towards stress.

Good luck to her in the finals today. I think Gu has more pop and amplitude, so probably the potential for a higher score, but she has also had several falls, in quals for this event and in runs in other events.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - 82lsju - 02-22-2026

Atkin takes the bronze and Gu the gold in halfpipe

https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/news/winter-olympics-2026-freestyle-skiing-eileen-gu-defends-halfpipe-title-in-china-1-2-as-zoe-atkin-wins-bronze

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - BostonCard - 02-22-2026

Also, Gu found out her grandmother passed away just after winning the Gold.

https://www.reuters.com/sports/freestyle-gu-learns-grandmothers-death-just-after-record-setting-run-2026-02-22/

BC

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - magnus - 02-23-2026

More insight into Eileen Gu, this time from her Stanford roommate. 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7059570/2026/02/21/eileen-gu-stanford-friends/

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - BostonCard - 02-23-2026

FWIW, the story provides corroboration of both the fact that her dorm was broken into and that Gu was assaulted.

Quote:But there have been unnerving moments, Koong says: their college room broken into, students taking selfies outside their door, simply because of the name on it, and an assault. “Physically assaulted on the street,” Gu said last week. Koong was the friend she texted when it happened in their first year at Stanford. “Where are you?” the text message read. “This guy just tried to grab me, I’m talking to the police.” When Koong arrived she noticed her roommate was shaking. “That was the scariest day,” Koong said.

BC

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - 82lsju - 02-23-2026

(02-23-2026, 01:20 AM)BostonCard Wrote:  FWIW, the story provides corroboration of both the fact that her dorm was broken into and that Gu was assaulted.

Quote:But there have been unnerving moments, Koong says: their college room broken into, students taking selfies outside their door, simply because of the name on it, and an assault. “Physically assaulted on the street,” Gu said last week. Koong was the friend she texted when it happened in their first year at Stanford. “Where are you?” the text message read. “This guy just tried to grab me, I’m talking to the police.” When Koong arrived she noticed her roommate was shaking. “That was the scariest day,” Koong said.

BC

a little more in a similar article in the Daily

Quote:The situation intensified when the stalker chased Gu. Lauren Koong ’26, Gu’s close friend and roommate, recalled that “she was running away from him, yelling ‘get away from me’ and no one did anything until he got close enough to attack.” Koong is a former executive editor of The Daily.


The police intervened after Gu started yelling. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if they weren’t there,” Koong told The Daily.

Gu took legal action after the incident. According to Koong, however, Stanford had been notified of the stalker prior to the attack and did not take action because he had not made direct contact with Gu.

The following year, during winter quarter, an intruder broke into Gu and Koong’s dorm.

“Our room number had [been] leaked because people were taking selfies with her name on our door.” Koong said. The dorm and room number were identifiable based on Gu and Koong’s door signs. “We obviously took her name down from the door, but people found out.”

Williams, who lived on the same floor as Gu and Koong, was the one to discover the break-in. “I walked past the door and it was wide open,” he said. “Lauren’s room had been sifted through, Eileen’s room had been tampered with.”

In shock, Williams called Koong, who was terrified by the news. Gu was traveling at the time.

“I walked in and all the drawers had been pulled open,” Koong recalled. “The closet doors were flung open. It was just a mess. Someone had gone through every single drawer, every single thing.”

After the incident, police came to the dorm and Koong filed a report, but tracking down the culprit proved difficult. “At the time, one of the entrances didn’t have security cameras, so it’s not like we could see everyone that went in and out,” said Koong

https://stanforddaily.com/2026/02/23/eileen-gu-life-at-stanford-friends/

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Griffins78 - 02-23-2026

I thought it was great that during the competition with Eileen Gu earning Gold and Zoe Atkin earning Bronze - that they went to Stanford was talked about a lot more than the countries they represented. It was as though Stanford was a country on the Olympic stage.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - martyup - 02-23-2026

Given the controversy surrounding her, it's surprising that she would put her name on her dorm room door.  I wasn't as famous as Gu, and I would have never considered putting my name on my door.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - magnus - 02-23-2026

(02-23-2026, 10:31 AM)martyup Wrote:  Given the controversy surrounding her, it's surprising that she would put her name on her dorm room door.  I wasn't as famous as Gu, and I would have never considered putting my name on my door.

Maybe that's the norm in dorms these days?  Perhaps the RAs pre-decorate at the start of the year?

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - 82lsju - 02-23-2026

(02-23-2026, 11:12 AM)magnus Wrote:  

(02-23-2026, 10:31 AM)martyup Wrote:  Given the controversy surrounding her, it's surprising that she would put her name on her dorm room door.  I wasn't as famous as Gu, and I would have never considered putting my name on my door.

Maybe that's the norm in dorms these days?  Perhaps the RAs pre-decorate at the start of the year?

I don't know about today but way back when at least the RAs in my dorm put up names at the beginning of the year

And if they still do the froshbook anyone with access to it can see what dorm you are in as a frosh....

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Treebound - 02-23-2026

The RA's do still put up names and hometowns on the doors in the dorms.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - BostonCard - 02-23-2026

Yeah, from the article it sounds like people started taking selfies in front of her door and posting them on social media. Even though they took down the names, there was enough identifying information in the background of the photos that her room could be located even without the name.

BC

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(02-20-2026, 02:01 AM)SkiBum80 Wrote:  

(02-19-2026, 11:33 PM)Snorlax94 Wrote:  And I have to say, I find Eileen Gu too perfectly represents the Stanford of today — financial riches, responses to questions in corporate doublespeak that’s been polished by PR firms, a sort of manufactured to be perfect champion with marketing. And Eileen Gu’s alma mater of today — trying to control things to be a little too perfect, it feels like the lawyers, investors and PR machine run Stanford now.

 I miss the old Stanford.

Absolutely agree that Alysa Liu was inspirational to watch skate so well with such joy. 
Her family story also inspirational.
Dad fleeing Communist persecution in China. When Alysa a top skater being deceitfully recruited to ditch USA and represent Team Red,
He told their agents (spy’s) No Way!
Possibly with more colorful language, like Alysa expressed in joy after her win.
To me, that spirit, as Alysa said, that’s what I’m talking about (w/o her extra emphasis).

I too found Liu’s story compelling and Gu’s left me feeling a bit colder.
That being said, I want to caution against dichotomizing people into heroes or villains on the basis of a media narrative.  What we get to see/read represents just the very tip of the iceberg of who a person really is (and often a somewhat selective view of that person colored by the reporter’s “angle”.  For better or for worse, “humans are complicated and contain multitudes” doesn’t typically sell papers, even though it is usually more accurate.  So, yeah, based on what I know now, I would much rather spend an afternoon talking to Liu than Gu, and certainly rooted for Liu… but that doesn’t mean that if I did have a chance to get to know each of them that I am certain that I’d feel the same way.

BC

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - Canalejas - 02-23-2026

I remember reading that some high-profile LSU athletes like Angel Reese and Livvy Dunne felt forced to take their classes online to avoid unpleasant interactions in person. And I always found those reports a little bit sad and couldn't help but compare those situations with my time on the Farm, where it seemed like the norm was to not be weird about the fact that we would be interacting with famous TV actors or literal princesses that were also members of our freshman class. 

But I guess times have changed. Too bad.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - SkiBum80 - 02-23-2026

(02-23-2026, 01:49 PM)Canalejas Wrote:  I remember reading that some high-profile LSU athletes like Angel Reese and Livvy Dunne felt forced to take their classes online to avoid unpleasant interactions in person. And I always found those reports a little bit sad and couldn't help but compare those situations with my time on the Farm, where it seemed like the norm was to not be weird about the fact that we would be interacting with famous TV actors or literal princesses that were also members of our freshman class. 

But I guess times have changed. Too bad.

Absolutely agree that regardless of Gu's choice of who to represent in the Olympics, that she deserved space to be left alone to be a Stanford student just like anyone else. 
And while I'm not on top of all the Stanford news about her, I wasn't aware that any of the reports of either her dorm breakin, or being accosted/assaulted on the street, were being connected to any other Stanford students, were they? Or confirmed as being caused by outsiders? Sorry, again, not aware of whether anything of that nature was confirmed or not?

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - martyup - 02-23-2026

(02-23-2026, 03:02 PM)SkiBum80 Wrote:  I wasn't aware that any of the reports of either her dorm break-in, or being accosted/assaulted on the street, were being connected to any other Stanford students, were they? Or confirmed as being caused by outsiders? 

Probably some damned outsider.

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - BostonCard - 02-23-2026

She has also said that she has viewed Stanford as a bit of a shelter from the outside world, so although she has had a few negative interactions, it doesn’t seem like it has defined her Stanford experience, which is good.

BC

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RE: The Winter Olympics with 4 Stanford students - ADPinWDC - 02-23-2026

BASE CASE:  Do we think China is an "enemy"... on par with Soviet Union in 1972 Olympics, 1976 or 1980?  
Would Gu catch any flack in those games for skiing for the USSR?  
I'll venture her citizenship would be forfeit.   [Gu is a US citizen, born in San Fran]  

Objective source at CSIS (2022), and several other reports:  
https://www.csis.org/programs/strategic-technologies-program/survey-chinese-espionage-united-states-2000
"It should be noted that the incidents of Chinese espionage far outnumber those by any other country, even Russia. The long-term cost to the American economy and national security cannot be precisely measured, but estimates run into the billions of dollars for commercial and technological espionage. Chinese espionage also created immeasurable damage to national security with the theft of weapons technology, including nuclear weapons test data. In the last few years, China has added the theft of massive quantities of personal information (PII), political coercion, and influence operations, to its espionage activities."  
[Long list of documented espionage]  

In her case, the situation is amplified by being PAID by the Chinese Communist Government, not merely by advertisers.  
[by Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau... an organ of the CCP.]   
Compare her case to Hockey Hero Jack Hughes (not a Stanford student; just an American -- whose parents also wore USA team jersey).  

No resorting to "rage"; just consider the facts of the case.  She is a paid propaganda tool for a brutal Communist Regime.  
We would have said the same thing if she wore a Soviet jersey and paid by the Kremlin in 1980.

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