China’s Gu nearly blows big air trials, locked in for finals

By JAKE SEINER
AP Sports Writer

BEIJING (AP) — Eileen Gu’s goal of three Olympic medals nearly blew away in the wind. The American-born freestyle skier who spurned Team USA for China ahead of the Beijing Games risked missing the finals in women’s big air when she lost a ski on her second run and crashed into do-or-die position entering Round 3. She said the wind changed directions before run No. 2 and threw her off. Gu scaled back her plans in the final round and put down a conservative right-side 900 to keep the Olympics from a double-whammy of lost star power about an hour after American skier Mikaela Shiffren was disqualified in giant slalom.