Skier Eileen Gu wears a custom, detailed ski suit at the Milano Cortina Olympics

When he’s not risking his neck doing acrobatic tricks on skis, Eileen Gu she loves walking the runways and posing on magazine covers as a model.

So it was no surprise to wear the most fashionable ski wear at the Winter Olympics.

Gu qualified for the women’s slopestyle final on Saturday in an outfit full of details inspired by her Chinese heritage and personal quirks.

The 22-year-old gu jumped at the chance to talk about her suit after she left the course.

“Oh my, I’ve been waiting for this moment, check it out!” she said before proceeding to the breakdown of her outfit.

The American competes for his native China, where his mother is. He said he and a Stanford classmate designed his suit to honor that family background, with a nod to the 2022 Beijing Games, where Gu became a world-class freeski star when he won two gold medals and a silver medal.

The white base color of the suit, from its Chinese sportswear sponsor Anta, mimics Chinese ceramics – also called “China” – creating a backdrop of blue graphics and pale gold lights.

A Chinese-style dragon rises on the sleeve below another dragon patch, a fierce look and a logo with his name in bold letters. His name also appears in scrawled graffiti-like letters under a cap near his neck. That’s covered by a bib, which, being white, doesn’t do anything to spoil the look, he said.

“Of course, I had to bring in the dragon element, which was also important in the last Olympics,” he said. “It gave me strength, courage, it served me, so I wanted to keep it.”

It would be hard to find a more personalized suit that includes a thermometer that changes color depending on the temperature.

“I was obsessed with humor rings when I was little,” he said. “You know, you put them on and they change color with temperature. And so it’s a thermometer that changes color.”

There is also a small compass that we said to satisfy his intellectual side. (He got into Stanford a year early, after all, after passing the SAT.)

“I just wanted a little modular item to nerd my little nerdy brain. But if you get lost, I can tell you which way north is,” he said.

But in the end, he returned to the sport he excels at.

Pointing to another spot on his suit, Gu said, “I’ve got clouds down here to represent the feeling of flying, which is what I love about freeskiing.”

We overcame a poor start with a strong second run to qualify for the women’s slopestyle final on Saturday. The pressure was on for the silver medalist after falling off the first rail in the opening race. But Gu responded by scoring a big goal in the second chance to finish behind their main rival.

Slopestyle is a course of rails and jumps that skiers navigate while performing acrobatic jumps that evaluate execution and difficulty. The freeski and snowboard events of these Olympic Games are taking place in Livignon, tucked away in the Italian Alps, a few hours from the official cities of Milan and Cortina.

The first 12 skiers advanced to the final. Among them, the British Kirsty Muir was the third best score, in front of the American Avery Krumme. Italy’s Maria Gasslitter rounded out the qualified skiers to give the home fans some extra cheer.

Qualifying for the men’s freeski slopestyle will take place on Saturday.