Eileen Gu's name has become one of the most popular this Winter Olympics for many reasons, but one of the more impressive points to note is that Eileen is not only a two-time gold medal winner, but is also the highest paid athlete at the 2026 Games.
Eileen is an American-born freestyle skier who has chosen to represent her mother’s native China at the 2026 Games. She shot to fame at the 2022 Games in Beijing where she won two gold and one silver medal, becoming the youngest skiing champion ever, and this season has already scored two silvers, making her the most decorated female freestyle skier in Olympic history.
Eileen will be hoping for a gold during the women's freeski halfpipe final, which has been postponed until Sunday February 22 due to snow.
© Getty ImagesAlthough her chance to gain a third Gold Olympic medal will have to wait a few extra hours, Eileen will already walk away from these Games with the opportunity to become an even bigger marketing superstar alongside her prize money.
Forbes has estimated that the 22-year-old has won around $100,000 in prize money over the past 12 months, which has come from a $55,000 check she collected in December 2025 for winning a halfpipe event in the Snow League, as well as the usual checks that usually sit around $20,000 for the World Circuit wins.
© Getty ImagesBut the Olympian's biggest haul comes from sponsorships and the publication reports that Eileen may have raked in over $23 million in the past 12 months from endorsements and brand deals.
As a teenager, before Olympics success, Eileen had early sponsorships from several Chinese sponsors such as Mengniu Dairy, Luckin Coffee, JD.com, China Mobile, and Bank of China, as well as The North Face, and CCTV9, a television channel operated by Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television.
© Getty ImagesEileen was named as a Red Bull-sponsored athlete in 2019, and has remained with the brand, becoming one of their premier global athletes, and she is also a founding member of Victoria's Secret's VS Collective, which launched in 2021 and saw the lingerie brand pivot from using their traditional Angels to divorce real-world women, with Eileen joining the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Priyanka Chopra.
Her business savvy as a teenager saw her able to pay for her own high school tuition, a "point of pride" that she shared on The Burnouts podcast, co-hosted by Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe Gates.
Eileen's mother was a single mom, who raised Eileen in the Bay Area of California. Eileen joined Stanford University as a freshman in 2022, and is majoring in International Relations. She spent the autumn of 2024 taking part in an exchange program at Oxford University in England.
© VCG via Getty ImagesSince the 2022 Olympics it is believed that her fees are now closer to $2.5 million, with one of those brands paying the price for Eileen's name and likeness being Porsche. Eileen was the star of their 2024 campaign titled "Taking the Wheel".
Eileen also signed with the agency IMG Models, and has modelled for editorial shoots as well as appeared in campaigns for fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.
© Tiffany & CoThe jewelry brand named Eileen a global House ambassador in June 2021, and she has appeared in several campaigns – "Give Me the T" (2021), Tiffany Knot (2022), and Tiffany Lock (2023) – and her choice of Tiffany rings during the 2022 Games went viral.
That same year she joined IWC Schaffhausen, the luxury watch brand, as an ambassador, and was seen wearing their $37,5000 IWC Ingenieur Automatic 35 watch when she took home the silver earlier in the 2026 Games.
