Stanford in the Winter Olympics - Printable Version
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Stanford in the Winter Olympics - BostonCard - 02-04-2022
Personally, I don’t have much interest in the Beijing Olympics, but there is an interesting story with a Stanford angle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/01/31/eileen-gu-china-freestyle-skiing-beijing-olympics/
Eileen Gu, who was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and will be enrolling at Stanford next year, will be competing for China.
BC
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - dabigv13 - 02-04-2022
I hope her future classmates draw her out more than the journalists can about how she is using her Chinese heritage for a very lucrative career choice to represent a country she wasn't born in, while that same country represses and imprisons their own citizens for having the wrong ethnicity.
"Growing skiing in China" GTFO, she's bright enough to know what bullshit that is.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - Phogge - 02-04-2022
I stopped watching the Winter Olympics when NBC Hired Tirico.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - 2006alum - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 09:04 AM)dabigv13 Wrote: I hope her future classmates draw her out more than the journalists can about how she is using her Chinese heritage for a very lucrative career choice to represent a country she wasn't born in, while that same country represses and imprisons their own citizens for having the wrong ethnicity.
"Growing skiing in China" GTFO, she's bright enough to know what bullshit that is.
+1. Does anyone believe this is anything other than a cash grab?
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - 82lsju - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 09:52 AM)2006alum Wrote:(02-04-2022, 09:04 AM)dabigv13 Wrote: I hope her future classmates draw her out more than the journalists can about how she is using her Chinese heritage for a very lucrative career choice to represent a country she wasn't born in, while that same country represses and imprisons their own citizens for having the wrong ethnicity.
"Growing skiing in China" GTFO, she's bright enough to know what bullshit that is.
+1. Does anyone believe this is anything other than a cash grab?
she's not the only one making a cash grab, listen to this interview
Quote:Despite allegations of genocide against ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang, China, many foreign firms are hoping to make the most of the winter sports boom that's expected there from the Winter Olympics next month.
Watch our interview with Craig Smith, chief executive of snowboarding firm Burton China, as he defends operating in the region.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-60045448
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - 82lsju - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 05:29 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Personally, I don’t have much interest in the Beijing Olympics, but there is an interesting story with a Stanford angle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/01/31/eileen-gu-china-freestyle-skiing-beijing-olympics/
Eileen Gu, who was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and will be enrolling at Stanford next year, will be competing for China.
BC
some more info here
https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/02/03/cold-warrior-why-eileen-gu-ditched-team-usa-to-ski-for-china
Quote:In a blur of black and red, Gu sped down the slope. After her final jump – two and a half turns in mid-air to a perfect backward landing – the pixels on the leaderboard rearranged and Gu’s name suddenly appeared in first place, next to the American flag. “It’s unreal!” she screamed. On the podium, sporting her first World Cup gold medal, Gu placed her hand over her heart as the American national anthem began to play. And she sang: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
There was little time to celebrate. As most of her American teammates raced home for the World Championships in Utah, Gu and her mother, Gu Yan, flew off in the opposite direction – to China. Gu spends part of every summer in Beijing, but this detour was unusual. It was hardly the fastest route back to high school in San Francisco. Nor was it, as Gu wrote cryptically six days later on Instagram, “a quick #hongkong pit stop before going home (finally)”. The newly crowned world number-one freestyle skier was going below the radar for a few days because she had a very special meeting to attend.
On February 1st 2019, less than a week after singing the “Star-Spangled Banner”, Gu reappeared in Beijing at an audience with Xi Jinping, China’s leader. The American teenager was now wearing a red-and-white Team China uniform, her bleached-blonde hair falling over the red five-star flag stitched on its front. Among the assembled athletes at the national winter-sports training centre, Gu stood in the front row, just a few feet from Xi, listening intently as he urged them to win honour for the motherland when it hosted its first Winter Olympics. “This is a once-in-a-century opportunity,” Xi told them. Their success, he said, was vital to “the nation’s great rejuvenation”.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - Phogge - 02-04-2022
I would watch if the Biathlon included some paint ball stuff with the competitors shooting each other or if Johnny Knoxville and his pals pull some stunts on Chinese government officials.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - gailtate - 02-04-2022
An unmitigated disgrace. Worse, even, than former tennis queen Sharapova's shenanigans, claiming Russian bona-fides. Russian "bona fides" is a self-cancelling phrase, of course.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - cardcrimson - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 09:04 AM)dabigv13 Wrote: I hope her future classmates draw her out more than the journalists can about how she is using her Chinese heritage for a very lucrative career choice to represent a country she wasn't born in, while that same country represses and imprisons their own citizens for having the wrong ethnicity.
"Growing skiing in China" GTFO, she's bright enough to know what bullshit that is.
Do you know her? Perhaps she's sincere. Perhaps she cares about China, it is her heritage. Perhaps she may use her star power to work for change. And if not, what's so wrong about maximizing your own earning potential.
Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the NBA, especially with James and Kerr's comments, or lack there of, on China? How do you feel about Apple?
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - dabigv13 - 02-04-2022
True, I don't know her inner motivations. But she's been a professional model and world class athlete for several years so I'm certain she is more worldly than most 18 year olds and knows the value of her image and brand.
I follow soccer and from time to time players will play for countries not of their birth if they have some parent or grandparent that can get them citizenship. Usually this is to get a spot on a team that's either perceived as stronger, or sometimes if they can't get a spot on their own team. There are some money aspects to it, and I don't really have an issue with it.
But Gu could and did represent the US, where she has lived her whole life, and would have had a very profitable marketing haul from that if she chose. She instead chose the path to being megarich rather than just rich, and that path includes representing an authoritarian repressive state that uses athletics as an important part of their international soft power.
Maybe most 18 year olds don't think about it so much but I'd hope ones matriculating to Stanford would. So if she's maximizing her earning potential, she's taking very dirty money to do it and it's fair game to call her on it.
I hope some of her former teammates beat her at her "home" Olympics but I'm not going to be watching.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - Phogge - 02-04-2022
Don't care about how she does but Eileen Gu... hummm baby!
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - cardcrimson - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 01:36 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: that path includes representing an authoritarian repressive state that uses athletics as an important part of their international soft power.
The same has been said about the US. And that opinion has been widely held by many athletes who chose to represent the US at various Olympic games, especially recently as criticizing the US has become quite an art form.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - gailtate - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 12:30 PM)cardcrimson Wrote:(02-04-2022, 09:04 AM)dabigv13 Wrote: I hope her future classmates draw her out more than the journalists can about how she is using her Chinese heritage for a very lucrative career choice to represent a country she wasn't born in, while that same country represses and imprisons their own citizens for having the wrong ethnicity.
"Growing skiing in China" GTFO, she's bright enough to know what bullshit that is.
Do you know her? Perhaps she's sincere. Perhaps she cares about China, it is her heritage. Perhaps she may use her star power to work for change. And if not, what's so wrong about maximizing your own earning potential.
Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about the NBA, especially with James and Kerr's comments, or lack there of, on China? How do you feel about Apple?
dabigv13 has already spoken but I want to jump hobnails-frst into this dog pile. The colossal harlots who suck up to the Communist Chinese today are just that: post-modern, high-tech escorts and their cohort in entertainment and media. I do what microscopically little I can, when I can on my part, avoiding Chinese imports like the Great Unmasked in close quarters. As for the slimey, duplicitous jock-o-crites, I wish them nothing but ill. The corporadoes today make the Otis Elevator people, the folks who built the lifts in the Eagles' Nest in the 1930s, look like penny-slot pikers. A pox on all their portfolios.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - teejers1 - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 01:36 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: True, I don't know her inner motivations. But she's been a professional model and world class athlete for several years so I'm certain she is more worldly than most 18 year olds and knows the value of her image and brand.
I follow soccer and from time to time players will play for countries not of their birth if they have some parent or grandparent that can get them citizenship. Usually this is to get a spot on a team that's either perceived as stronger, or sometimes if they can't get a spot on their own team. There are some money aspects to it, and I don't really have an issue with it.
But Gu could and did represent the US, where she has lived her whole life, and would have had a very profitable marketing haul from that if she chose. She instead chose the path to being megarich rather than just rich, and that path includes representing an authoritarian repressive state that uses athletics as an important part of their international soft power.
Maybe most 18 year olds don't think about it so much but I'd hope ones matriculating to Stanford would. So if she's maximizing her earning potential, she's taking very dirty money to do it and it's fair game to call her on it.
I hope some of her former teammates beat her at her "home" Olympics but I'm not going to be watching.
Wow, dabig . . . just wow!
I was nodding my head in 100% agreement from top to bottom.
Well-said.
Eff-Gu!
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - cardcrimson - 02-04-2022
Though not a Stanford guy, equal outrage here? An American Olympic silver medalist just four years ago now skates for Hungary (an alleged ultra right country) in these Olympics. His brother is skating for them too. Both grew up in Pennsylvania. . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Henry_Krueger
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - Jamesy - 02-04-2022
(02-04-2022, 09:05 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Though not a Stanford guy, equal outrage here? An American Olympic silver medalist just four years ago now skates for Hungary (an alleged ultra right country) in these Olympics. His brother is skating for them too. Both grew up in Pennsylvania. . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Henry_Krueger
Interesting, hadn't heard about it until now. Here's an article with some more info. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2018/04/30/he-won-an-olympic-medal-for-the-u-s-in-pyeongchang-now-he-wants-to-compete-for-a-new-country/
I think it's different/potentially justifiable in that he was essentially living in poverty with USA speed skating vs being able to have essentials covered and then some with Hungary. He's also not being paraded about in ads in China (I think). As someone else alluded with the skier, she went from rich to mega rich by competing for China.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - fullmetal - 02-05-2022
I wouldn't have put it past the CCP to have applied some amount of leverage on Ms. Gu's maternal side of the family to provide more incentive. Carrot *and* stick tend to work well in concert.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - ca245 - 02-05-2022
(02-04-2022, 11:31 PM)Jamesy Wrote:Less recently, recall that Becky Hammond took up Russian citizenship to play WBB in the Olympics for Russia.(02-04-2022, 09:05 PM)cardcrimson Wrote: Though not a Stanford guy, equal outrage here? An American Olympic silver medalist just four years ago now skates for Hungary (an alleged ultra right country) in these Olympics. His brother is skating for them too. Both grew up in Pennsylvania. . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John-Henry_Krueger
Interesting, hadn't heard about it until now. Here's an article with some more info. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2018/04/30/he-won-an-olympic-medal-for-the-u-s-in-pyeongchang-now-he-wants-to-compete-for-a-new-country/
I think it's different/potentially justifiable in that he was essentially living in poverty with USA speed skating vs being able to have essentials covered and then some with Hungary. He's also not being paraded about in ads in China (I think). As someone else alluded with the skier, she went from rich to mega rich by competing for China.
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - BobK - 02-05-2022
Jill Harmon and Ali Riley for New Zealand
RE: Stanford in the Winter Olympics - 2006alum - 02-05-2022
(02-04-2022, 04:06 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(02-04-2022, 01:36 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: True, I don't know her inner motivations. But she's been a professional model and world class athlete for several years so I'm certain she is more worldly than most 18 year olds and knows the value of her image and brand.
I follow soccer and from time to time players will play for countries not of their birth if they have some parent or grandparent that can get them citizenship. Usually this is to get a spot on a team that's either perceived as stronger, or sometimes if they can't get a spot on their own team. There are some money aspects to it, and I don't really have an issue with it.
But Gu could and did represent the US, where she has lived her whole life, and would have had a very profitable marketing haul from that if she chose. She instead chose the path to being megarich rather than just rich, and that path includes representing an authoritarian repressive state that uses athletics as an important part of their international soft power.
Maybe most 18 year olds don't think about it so much but I'd hope ones matriculating to Stanford would. So if she's maximizing her earning potential, she's taking very dirty money to do it and it's fair game to call her on it.
I hope some of her former teammates beat her at her "home" Olympics but I'm not going to be watching.
Wow, dabig . . . just wow!
I was nodding my head in 100% agreement from top to bottom.
Well-said.
Eff-Gu!
Add me to the bandwagon here. I'm soft protesting these Olympics by simply not engaging. No clicks, no eyeballs. Taking note of who the major sponsors are and shopping elsewhere as appropriate. The hypocrisy of all these brands that care about "DEI" and then take money from this is galling. Not to mention the NBA, hypocrites par none.
The one sports league that has come out with a lot of credibility is the WTA, where they've refused to host tournaments in China until they feel sufficiently satisfied that Peng Shuai is free to live her life as she pleases. The WTA is going to take a brobdingnagian hit from it, financially, but they're putting their money where their mouth is.