Livigno: Indra Brown has fallen just short of the podium in her Winter Olympics debut – but the woman who has anointed her as freeski’s next big thing, Eileen Gu, expects the Australian teenager to be challenging for her crown very soon.

Gu’s gold medal in the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe final on Sunday makes her the most decorated athlete in the history of her sport, surpassing Canada’s moguls king Mikael Kingsbury.

In six events across two Olympics, the 22-year-old has never finished worse than silver – an astonishing level of excellence and consistency, so early in her career.

The American-born Chinese skier’s third run in Livigno scored 94.75 points, but her second run, worth 94.00, also would have been enough to seal back-to-back Olympic titles in this discipline. Fellow Chinese athlete Fanghui Li took silver with 93.00, while Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin won the bronze medal with 92.50 in a tight, high-quality final.

Brown, meanwhile, came fifth on 87.00 – within touching distance of a podium finish in her first appearance at the Olympics, and only a few weeks after she turned 16. She was also one of only two competitors to pull off a 1080 spin, or three full rotations.

Eileen Gu and Indra Brown after the women’s halfpipe final.© Getty Images

Gu is a huge fan of Brown, who she described as the “real deal” and a “little me” earlier in the Games. The two shared a special moment after Brown’s third run, which rocketed her up the leaderboard – Gu embraced her with a warm hug and a few words of encouragement as she waited for her score to be shown on the big screen.

“I told her I was so proud of her, and also I told her that her time would come,” Gu said, her three medals from Milano Cortino 2026, including silvers in the slopestyle and big air, clanging together as she spoke to reporters.

“Because I could see that she was a little bit disappointed with fifth – but I’m not at all worried. She has many, many, many medals in her future, and as long as she keeps up her work ethic, I have no concern she’s going to do amazing.

“She’s awesome. She’s so amazing, I mean, she’s incredible … the consistency, the execution, I think she’s fantastic. I’m really excited to watch her ski [over the next four years].”

Brown’s coach is American Jamie Melton, who also coached Gu when she was bursting onto the freestyle skiing scene at the same age. She said it was “really cool” to have Gu’s backing.

“I idolise her,” she said. “To have her give me a hug at the end of my last run at the Olympics is pretty special.”

Brown landed all three of her runs in the final, and increased the degree of difficulty run-on-run to end with her third attempt.

“I tried to build every run, to try and up my score every run, which I did, and then in my last run … stoked on that run, never put it down in competition, so I was really happy,” Brown said.

“It’s incredible. I just wanted to come out here and show everyone what I could do, so by doing that and getting this result, it’s amazing.”

Though she is still so young, it’s obvious where Brown’s improvement will come from: the pace of her movement in the pipe was notably slower than the competitiors who finished above her, as was the height – or amplitude – she achieved at the top of each of her tricks. The highest she climbed was three metres, compared to Gu’s four and Atkin’s five. That will surely come as her body grows, and as she grows into it.

“It’s time in the pipe, trusting yourself, building speed each lap and just being confident with your skiing,” Brown said.

There is no rest for Brown, who will immediately depart Italy to compete in the FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships in Canada.

Gu, meanwhile, was basking in the history she had created immediately after the event, and said she had no intention of slowing down.

Eileen Gu with her Olympic gold medal.© Getty Images

“Six for six is pretty hard,” she said.

“I’m so in love with skiing, and I think this past Olympic cycle, especially, I’ve broken through so much mental gunk that had kind of built up after the last Olympics. I took nine months off. I don’t even really want to do that [this time] … I have to go to [Milan] fashion week now and, like, do my fashion work, the other job. But after that, I kind of just want to go back and ski more.

“Does that sound crazy? Like, I’m kind of into it.”

But by the time she left the mixed zone and arrived for the official medal winners’ press conference, Gu received some tragic news: her grandmother had passed away.

“She was a really big part of my life growing up and someone I looked up to immensely,” Gu said through tears.

“She was a fighter, and I think what’s so interesting is that a lot of people just cruise through life, but she was a steamship. This woman commanded life, and she grabbed it by the reins and she made it what she wanted it to be. She inspired me so much.

“The last time I saw her before I came over to the Olympics, she was very sick, so I knew this was a possibility. I didn’t promise her I was going to win, but I did promise her that I was going to be brave, like she has been brave, and that’s why I keep referring to this theme of betting on myself and being brave and taking risks.

“It actually goes back to that promise [between] me and my grandma, so I’m really happy I was able to uphold that and hopefully do her proud, but it’s also a really difficult time for me.”