Javier Sanchez

Updated Saturday, February 3, 2024-22:08

Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Venus Williams, Elena Rybakina

and

Leylah Fernández

. Of the 10 highest-paid female athletes in the world, nine are tennis players. The millionaire prizes on the WTA circuit increase their income and there are many companies interested in sponsoring them, more than in any other sport. The best golfer in the world,

Nelly Korda

, the iconic soccer player

Megan Rapinoe

, the leader of the WNBA champions,

Candace Parker

, and the legendary gymnast

Simone Biles

follow them closely on the list made annually by Forbes, but they are left out. that Top 10. And then, who sneaks in among all the tennis players? Who earned more than $20 million like them in 2023? A freeskier.

One that? An acrobatic skier, a specialist in jumps and tricks, that is, an athlete in a young discipline, not well known and with few practitioners. It is

Eileen Gu

, double champion in the last Winter Olympic Games in Beijing 2022, a star that is impossible to define because she is a freeskier, yes, but also other things.

"She's very hard-working. She always amazes me how she combines her skiing career with modeling, with her studies... I think that if she has achieved so much popularity it is thanks to her dedication," comments Thibault

Magnin

, freeski reference. in Spain and personal friend of Gu. And part of her success is explained like this: she combines ski slopes with fashion catwalks naturally. Before a competition in the Austrian Alps she may fly to New York to participate in the Met Gala; Before a rally in Switzerland she can walk at Paris Fashion Week for Louis Vuitton.

Last year, according to Forbes itself, Gu received less than $100,000 in prizes - tennis player Swiatek almost $10 million - but earned $22 million in advertising, much more than any athlete in the world. Among her sponsors are Porsche, Victoria's Secret, Tiffany's and the watchmaker IWC and she has appeared on the cover of magazines such as Vogue. But her economic well-being does not respond only to her image, far from it: it also has a lot to do with geopolitics.

Excellent student, nothing controversial

Gu is American, born in San Francisco in 2003, learned to ski near Lake Tahoe and now studies Quantum Physics at Stanford University - with an excellent average - but competes for China. Her mother,

Yan Gu

, who raised her alone, moved from China to the United States in the 1990s to pursue a master's degree in molecular biology, and she stayed there. At the age of 15, after having won a Junior World Cup as a Yankee, Eileen Gu decided to represent her family's country and since then she has lived on a fine and profitable line. She has sponsors and media attention from both countries and, at the same time, she must measure in detail her decisions, her steps, her words.

In the United States, queen of the X Games, she is a regular on television, events and campaigns, but she is also criticized for representing China and certain positions are expected of her that do not arrive. For example, before the last Winter Olympics, she stopped an interview with the New York Times because they were going to ask her about Hong Kong or the disappearance of tennis player

Peng Shuai

. In China, where she is known as Gu Ailing, she is a mass idol, but her relationship with the country is inflated and her statements are scrutinized.

«It is better for her to talk about certain topics, they are delicate, but I can say that in China there is a ski boom thanks to her. There was a World Cup in December and it was packed with people just to see it,” Magnin rightly points out. The recent Winter Olympic Games in Beijing and the figure of Gu have formed a fashion in the Asian country that can only be compared to the basketball boom 20 years ago led by

Yao Ming

.

Gu is the second highest-paid athlete, but could soon become the first. Last year, in fact, she took advantage of an injury to elevate her career as a model - and take twice as many courses at Stanford as she was supposed to - and now, back on the snow, she continues to win and win and winning. «As a skier she is very strong, she is very high up, at another level. Her rivals are improving, but it will be difficult for them to beat her," analyzes freeskier Thibault Magnin about Eileen Gu, the skier who is many things at once.