Enes Kanter Freedom calls Eileen Gu ‘traitor’ for representing Team China

Former NBA participant Enes Kanter Freedom condemned American-born Olympic skier Eileen Gu of Crew China throughout an interview on Fox Information’ “Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday.

“I am simply going to say it: She’s a traitor,” Freedom mentioned. “She was born in America. She grew up in America, lives in America and chooses to battle towards her personal nation over, actually, the worst human rights abuser on the earth, China. She constructed her fame in a free nation after which chooses to symbolize an authoritarian regime.”

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Silver medalist Eileen Gu of China attends the awards ceremony of the freestyle snowboarding ladies’s freeski huge air occasion on the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy, February 16, 2026. (Hongxiang/Xinhua by way of Getty Photographs)

Gu has by no means publicly spoken out towards this China’s alleged human rights abusestogether with the nation’s alleged systematic marketing campaign of repression towards Uyghurs and different predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Area, or the imprisonment of politician Jimmy Lai.

“She selected to play for a rustic that’s actually answerable for the deaths of tens of tens of millions of its personal individuals, and is actually working a focus camp whereas we’re speaking,” Freedom mentioned, evaluating Gu’s silence on the problem to LeBron James’ query about China’s alleged human rights abuses in 2019.

“It is like a play,” he mentioned. “Each time the human rights points about China are introduced up, all of them cease speaking about it.”

Gu is the highest-paid Winter Olympic athlete on the earth, incomes an estimated $23 million by 2025 alone by means of partnerships with Chinese language corporations, together with the Financial institution of China, and Western corporations. Gu has mentioned she represents China for her mom, who was born there.

CONTROVERSIAL SKIER EILEEN GU COMES FOR SILVER AFTER DEFENDING GOLD MEDAL BID FALLS SHORT IN MILAN

China’s Eileen Gu reacts after the second run of the Freestyle Snowboarding Ladies’s Freeski Slopestyle last on the Livigno Snow Park throughout the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina in Italy on Monday, February 9, 2026. (David Davies/PA Photographs by way of Getty Photographs)

The Wall Street Journal reported final week that Gu and Zhu Yi, an American-born determine skater who now competes for China, acquired a mixed $6.6 million from the Beijing Municipal Sports activities Bureau in 2025 for “pursuing glorious leads to qualifying for the Milan 2026 Winter Olympics.” In whole, the 2 have reportedly paid practically $14 million over the previous three years.

Gu has been the topic of world criticism since her choice to symbolize China relationship again to the unique choice in 2019, and her first Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022. This yr, that criticism has elevated as she has received two silver medals and even responded to a query about President Donald Trump criticizing US Olympian Hunter Hess for being important of the present state of America.

“I am sorry that the headline overshadowing the Olympics needs to be one thing that has so little to do with the spirit of the Video games. It actually goes towards the whole lot the Olympics needs to be,” Gu informed reporters on Monday.

“The entire level of sports activities is to deliver individuals collectively. … One of many few frequent languages, that of the human physique, that of the human thoughts, the aggressive spirit, the power to not solely break information, however particularly in our sport, actually the human restrict. How wonderful is that?”

Gu additionally claimed that she herself had been “caught within the crossfire”.

“As somebody who has been caught within the crossfire earlier than, I really feel sorry for the athletes,” Gu mentioned. “I hope they will ski their finest.”

Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the controversy surrounding Gu in an interview on Fox Information’ “The Story With Martha MacCallum” on Tuesday.

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Ailing Eileen Gu of Crew Folks’s Republic of China takes half in run two of the Ladies’s Freeski Huge Air Closing on day ten of the 2026 Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina at Livigno Snow Park on February 16, 2026 in Livigno, Italy. (Patrick Smith/Getty Photographs)

“I do not know what her standing is meant to be, I feel that is in the end what is going on on Olympic Video games Committee, I cannot faux to dig into this,” Vance mentioned.

“I definitely assume that somebody who grew up in the US of America and has benefited from our schooling system, from the freedoms that make this nation an important place, I hope he desires to compete with the US of America. So I am going root for American athletesI feel a part of that’s individuals figuring out themselves as Individuals. That’s what I’m advocating for throughout these Olympic Video games.”

Gu has received two silver medals in freestyle snowboarding in Milan Cortina, within the slopestyle and large air occasions. She has one final occasion on Saturday, the halfpipe, the place she can have the chance so as to add to her whole.

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