Eileen Gu withdrew before Friday’s ski halfpipe and ski big air events at the Winter X Games after sustaining an injury in a fall in the earlier street style competition.
“I’m okay but unable to walk at this point in time due to some really aggressive bruising on that last crash,” was posted on her social media. “To be completely honest, my mental and physical tanks hit zero yesterday. I was planning on pulling out two nights ago but challenged myself to get through the practices and to stay in the contests for the love of the game and as a mental strength exercise.
“After battling 5 days of fever, staying up coughing through the night, skiing 12 hour days + four different events... it was physically just too much and my nervous system has been in overdrive all week.”
Gu, who in 2022 won two gold medals and one silver at a home Olympics in China, previously posted that her “only goal” at X Games was to make it out healthy.
This is the third consecutive year that Gu has been injured during or shortly before the X Games.
In 2023, she withdrew after spraining an ACL and MCL and bruising a bone in a practice crash.
In 2024, she won the ski halfpipe in her only event of those X Games in what she later called “an unprecedented level of pain.” She posted that “a heavy hit” to her hip in training three days before the event left her barely able to walk.
In Gu’s absence Friday, 2018 Olympic gold medalist Cassie Sharpe of Canada won the ski halfpipe in her first X Games since having daughter Lou in August 2023.
“It’s been a long road back, and I’m speechless,” Sharpe said in a broadcast interview after handing Lou off to her mom at the bottom of the pipe.
Also Friday, two-time Olympic champion David Wise announced he will miss Saturday’s men’s ski halfpipe after a fall in a practice run. He posted that he sustained severe bone bruising on his tibial plateau.
In women’s snowboard slopestyle, Olympic gold medalist Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand became the first woman to land a triple cork in a ski or snowboard slopestyle event, according to commentators.
She won the event for a fourth time, one year after watching the X Games in person while nursing an ankle injury.
“Honestly I didn’t know if I would ever be on the podium again going through this injury,” she said.
Fellow Kiwi Luca Harrington then won men’s ski slopestyle, less than 24 hours after being called up from an alternate spot. Harrington capped his winning 93.33-point run with a switch triple cork 1620 in his X Games debut.
Hiroto Ogiwara of Japan became the first person to land a 2340 in competition in the men’s snowboard big air final. Ogiwara, 19, won after fracturing his forearm Friday morning, according to a press release.
Flora Tabanelli, 17, became the first Italian to win any Winter X Games title when she took ski big air in the Olympic champion Gu’s absence.
“I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” a tearful Tabanelli said, according to the release.
She previously won the 2024 Youth Olympic titles in big air and slopestyle. Italy, which hosts the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games, has never won an Olympic medal in any freestyle skiing event.
The X Games conclude Saturday, featuring Chloe Kim going for a record-breaking seventh women’s halfpipe title in Aspen.
