Eileen Gu takes aim at another gold medal, this time in halfpipe.

Eileen Gu, who has already won two Olympic medals in Beijing, moved her ambitions to the freestyle skiing halfpipe on Thursday.

Gu, the Californian who is competing for China, believes that the halfpipe is the best of her three events. She has already won gold in big air and narrowly missed another in slopestyle, settling for silver.

The women’s final is scheduled for Friday morning (Thursday evening in the United States).

Gu’s competition included her top rival, Kelly Sildaru of Estonia, the only other woman who competed in all three events (big air, slopestyle, halfpipe).

The United States has a strong contingent, led by the 17-year-old Hanna Faulhaber, who was fourth at the world championships last year, and Brita Sigourney, who won Olympic bronze four years ago.

Born and raised in California but competing for China, Gu has attracted international attention — and some debate — for her decision in 2019 to represent her mother’s homeland.

The decision was barely noted when she was 15 and the Olympics were nearly three years away. Now Gu dominates her sport and finds herself straddling a growing geopolitical rift between her two countries.

Yan Gu, Eileen’s mother, was born in Shanghai and raised in Beijing, the daughter of a government engineer. She emigrated to the United States about 30 years ago for postgraduate studies and settled in San Francisco.

Eileen Gu, raised by her mother in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood, has become a model, representing luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Tiffany. She has so many sponsorships in China that she is a ubiquitous presence in advertisements and receives glowing coverage from the state news media.

Gu has said that she wants to be a bridge between the United States and China while inspiring young women and helping China’s nascent winter-sports industry to grow. She and her mother have declined to discuss any of the thorny geopolitical issues that involve the rival countries.