Eileen Gu, world’s greatest free skier chooses China over the USA: agreement, outrage, indifference?

As has been mentioned earlier, take a look at the Chinese Ice Hockey team. It is comprised of mainly foreigners that have obtained Chinese citizenship. Some even hold citizenship in three countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_men%27s_national_ice_hockey_team#Roster

"It doesn’t matter if other people are happy or not. I'm enjoying the entire process and I am using my voice to create enough positive change for the voices who will listen to me in an area that is personal and relevant to myself.

"I know I have a good heart. And I know my reasons for making the decisions I do, they are based on a greater common interest and that something I feel like is for the greater good.

"And so if other people don't believe that is where I am coming from, that just reflects they do not have the empathy to empathize with a good heart - perhaps because they don’t share the same kind of morals that I do.

"I'm not going to waste my time trying to placate people who are one uneducated and two, they are not going to experience the gratitude and love I have the great fortune to experience on a daily basis. If they don't believe me, and if people don’t like me, that is their loss: they are never going to win the Olympics."

I love it.

Chase the bag!

When the Olympics ride it’s self of corruption, money, cheats then we can judge niche sport athletes for simply maximizing their earning potential.

So apparently the Canadian ice skater Keegan Messing represented the US until 22, and then switched to Canada. Mom is Canadian. Where is the outrage????

ice fairy wrote:

So apparently the Canadian ice skater Keegan Messing represented the US until 22, and then switched to Canada. Mom is Canadian. Where is the outrage????

Incels outnumber femcels on this site and its not even close.

That's a good point wrote:

China's laws DO allow dual citizenship at birth and they can keep their dual citizenship while they are minors. Once they become an adult they need to choose whether or not they want to keep their Chinese citizenship.

No, that does not appear to be correct for China (though true for Japan). China does not recognize dual citizenship, even for children. Assuming her mother had "settled" in the US (presumably with a green card) at the time of her birth, Eileen would not have been considered a Chinese national at that time.

Dual Citizen wrote:

cutthatmeat wrote:

Agree 100%, and would feel the same way if this was a white male doing it for Russia

Actually there is a white male US citizen doing this. Victor Wild, born in the US and is a snowboarder, competes for Russia as he gained Russian citizenship after marrying a Russian woman (who also competed in snowboarding) in 2011. He got very little support from the US Olympic system but Russia stepped up and did.

Stay mad bro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Wild

I’m aware of him from Sochi Olympics. Big difference is that the US snowboarding federation bailed on the racing event, and wouldn’t fund him. He had no choice as an athlete.

And, it’s still gross he did it

Gross, huh? I guess he should have given up on his dreams to appease the nationalism of a random dude on Letsrun. That would have been the correct path forward, apparently.

greg kirby wrote:

"You think China and America are equally bad actors in the world. Ok, I get it."

Nope, you don't. My point isn't "China bad, but US bad too." What kind of middle-school-level oversimplification is that? My point is about you and others like you who are neck deep in propaganda being useful idiots while being blissfully unaware of it.

You mean like the same propaganda China is pedalling? A greater version of propaganda or a lesser version?

Who's her bf or gf? Whoever it is they're darned lucky. She's hot and smart.

He thought it was me. Which I knew in advance, because wingnuts who can't grasp reality think the only way something can disagree with them is if it's conspiratorial.

AP5000 wrote:

runnerboy70 wrote:

She shows no loyalty to the country that gave her a privileged upbringing and instead embraces a totalitarian, repressive country in order to make lots of money.... She's disgusting...

This. It has nothing to do with race. It would be the same if it were Russia.

Yeah? Do we feel the same about Bernard Lagat, Hillary Bor, Paul Chelimo, Shadrack Kipchirchir and Benard Keter? Or are these just more American exceptionalism-based double standards? You have Africans literally joining the army so they can immigrate, and being paraded around like show ponies as recruitment tools for dumb country hicks to make them think military service is a path to fame and glory. At last Eileen was partly Chinese when she was bnorn.

this is exactly it wrote:

AP5000 wrote:

This. It has nothing to do with race. It would be the same if it were Russia.

Yeah? Do we feel the same about Bernard Lagat, Hillary Bor, Paul Chelimo, Shadrack Kipchirchir and Benard Keter? Or are these just more American exceptionalism-based double standards? You have Africans literally joining the army so they can immigrate, and being paraded around like show ponies as recruitment tools for dumb country hicks to make them think military service is a path to fame and glory. At last Eileen was partly Chinese when she was bnorn.

Go read this post and think about what you are saying. Those athletes below LEFT shotty, oppressive counties to come here to survive and hopefully thrive. Gu "left" FOR an oppressive, totalitarian country simple for the money. This chick lived like a classic California girl her whole life. Has had the best training, education, now going to Stanford. She's American through and through, and just happens to have Chinese ancestry. I'm part Croatian. You think I would even consider representing Croatia when I'm born and raised in the US?

this is it right here wrote:

TrackCoach wrote:

------------------------------

You responded to my post faster than most people could in a text message or chat. Being that your English is very good, I am pretty certain you are Chinese-American wumao responding to various post using different names. Gotha!

“What you said makes too much sense and is formulated too effectively. You must be a foreign agent. Also, I can’t imagine a world where anyone might look at this situation objectively, so you had to either be on my side or an actual Communist.”

You’re a moron.

You should have said a 'registered' moron.

Those athletes left a country where star athletes are treated like royalty, to join a foreign army. Again, it's classic American exceptionalism to think "US Army > life in any other country I deem a sh$7hole." Americans have no problem accepting stars from other countries to use for their own ideological purposes, and can't fathom why anyone would leave the US to do the same somewhere else.

The life Chinese representation is giving Gu is 100x better than the one Chelimo is getting here. She's just making Chinese people feel better about their country. Chelimo traded citizenship for military service. He might actually be responsible for someone signing up for the army, and getting killed in a stupid war that doesn'rt matter.

"This chick lived like a classic California girl her whole life"

Yeah, can't imagine why that might not be the greatest selling point.

I don't think you realize how many countries are sh*teholes. The majority are. You obviously have never seen them . Yes, being in the US Army is a significantly better life than most people living in most countries have. I'm a veteran and have been all over the world, five different continents, and see some serious sh*teholes...and I haven't even been to Bangladesh or Africa. It's absurd you think this would not be a better life. It's not American exceptionalism, it a fact.

Incels outnumber femcels on this site and its not even close.

This made me lol (although it describes a sad reality).

What’s increasingly clear in reading the media reports and reading between the lines of Gu’s comments, is that she’s not given up anything. Im sure she’s still an American citizen with all the rights, privileges and burdens entailed. The Chinese must have insisted she not say this explicitly or otherwise why wouldn’t she? Whatever we think about her decision, it’s almost a near certainty that she did not have to give up her status in the US to compete for China. If China had insisted on enforcing their laws against dual citizenship then I suspect she would not have gone through with the change, but they didn’t, so she really didn’t have to make the hard choice. No, I can’t prove this is so, but does anybody really believe otherwise now?

Glad you came around to the obvious. That’s what I and most of us probably believe. There was similar discussion in the past about other dual citizens and the “requirement” of various countries to drop US citizenship and it seemed like no one ever really had to do it. Or the US doesn’t care that you tell another country you are dropping US citizenship, that’s not enough to lose citizenship/forgo paying US income taxes.