Chinese star Gu comes up short again

China's freestyle skiing superstar Eileen Gu was beaten to gold for the second time at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics on Monday after Loic Meillard extended Switzerland’s domination of the men’s alpine skiing.

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Gu was aiming to retain her big air title, one of the two golds she won four years ago when she was the darling of the Beijing Games.

The withdrawal through injury of Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud, who beat Gu into second in the slopestyle event earlier in these Olympics, boosted her chances.

But Gu came up against inspired Canadian Megan Oldham, who pulled out all the stops to win at Livigno Snow Park.

Gu even risked slipping out of medal position after a poor second attempt but she recovered impressively to score 89.00 with her final effort to propel her into the silver medal position.

However, Oldham’s cleaner skiing gave her a combined score of 180.75 to finish narrowly ahead of Gu (179.00) while Flora Tabanelli won bronze for Italy.

“It feels incredible,’ said Oldham. “I’m still trying to process it all. It’s been such a dream of mine.”

Gu has not competed in big air, in which competitors take off from a large ramp and perform aerial tricks, since the Beijing Games.