Freestyle skier Eileen Gu has emerged as one of the highest-earning female athletes in the world, raking in an estimated $23 million annually—a figure that far surpasses most of her fellow competitors at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The vast majority of Gu's income comes not from prize money on the slopes, but from an extensive portfolio of endorsement deals spanning both Western and Chinese markets.
According to Forbes, the 22-year-old ranks as the fourth-highest-paid female athlete globally, behind tennis stars Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Światek. She stands alone as the top earner among all athletes competing in the current Winter Olympics.
Gu's lucrative brand partnerships include global names such as Red Bull, Porsche, and IWC Schaffhausen, as well as Chinese companies including Anta Sports, Bosideng, Mengniu Dairy, Luckin Coffee, and most recently, electronics giant TCL. The Stanford University junior—who is currently on leave from her international relations studies—also earns income through modeling with IMG Models, having walked runways for Victoria's Secret and Louis Vuitton and graced the covers of multiple fashion magazines.
By contrast, Gu's actual competition winnings remain modest. She earned approximately $40,000 for winning World Cup slopestyle and halfpipe events in 2025, plus $55,000 for the halfpipe event in Shaun White's Snow League, according to People.
Born and raised in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and an American father, Gu made the controversial decision in 2019 to represent China in international competition. "I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings," she wrote on Instagram at the time. "The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love."
The choice supercharged her appeal in China, where she boasts over seven million followers on social media platform Weibo, complementing her more than two million Instagram followers.
At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Gu validated the hype by winning gold medals in Big Air and Halfpipe, plus silver in Slopestyle—becoming the first freestyle skier to medal in three events at a single Games. On Monday (February 10), she added another silver medal to her collection in the slopestyle final at Milan Cortina, narrowly missing gold by just .38 points to Switzerland's Mathilde Gremaud.
The women's freestyle skiing events continue through the Milan Cortina Games, with Gu competing in all three disciplines—slopestyle, big air, and halfpipe—as she aims to add more Olympic medals to her already historic collection.