Bay Area/Lake Tahoe team makes Eileen Gu top pick in X Games Winter League draft

Eileen Gu, the freestyle skier and six-time Olympic medalist from San Francisco, was the No. 1 overall choice in Wednesday night's draft ahead of the inaugural season for the X Games Winter League.

XC Golden State, the franchise representing the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe, chose Gu with the first pick of the draft, held in Los Angeles.

Gu, one of the winter league's "athlete founders," shared her reaction to the news in a video posted on Instagram.

"I just wanted to say how honored and grateful I am to be the first overall draft pick," she said. "I'm really excited to make something super magical happen this season. … I think this league is going to be so big for our industry and our sport."

Gu, 23, stirred international controversy in 2019, when she announced she would compete for China, her mother's birth country. Gu was raised in San Francisco: She attended University High School and competed for the U.S. in her youth.

She won two gold medals and one silver in freestyle skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Then, at the Winter Games in Italy earlier this year, Gu earned another gold medal and two more silvers.

Wednesday night's draft featured each of the four teams – Golden State, New York, Park City and Whistler – selecting 10 athletes from skiing and snowboarding. Golden State's second pick was Luca Harrington, a skier from New Zealand, and its other choices included one skier (Lainey Steen) and one snowboarder (Lily Dhawornavej) from Colorado.

In addition to Gu, the other first-round draft choices were Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris (New York), Chinese snowboarder Yiming Su (Park City) and Canadian skier Megan Oldham (Whistler).

The X Games Winter League announced this week that its maiden season would feature three events – in Aspen (Jan. 29-31), Calgary (Feb. 19-21) and Ruka, Finland (April 9-11).