Move over Eileen Gu, there’s a new California-born Chinese-American Winter Olympic gold medalist queen of Instagram. And this one represents the red, white and blue. Team USA’s Alysa Liu reached 5.3 million followers on Instagram on Tuesday, just one week after winning the country’s first individual Olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating in 24 years. Liu instantly became a global sensation and fan favorite among loyal Team USA fans of all backgrounds and beliefs. CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM Prior to the start of the Olympics, Liu had less than 300,000 followers on Instagram. But her performance in the women’s final propelled her to worldwide superstardom, as arguably the biggest story of this year’s entire Winter Games. Meanwhile, Gu, a skiing star who competes for Team China despite being born and raised in the U.S., won a gold medal herself and two silvers. It brought her total Olympic medal tally to six with three golds, making her the most decorated women’s freeskier in the sport’s history. However, Gu now sits well below Liu in terms of Instagram followers with just 3.7 million. Liu is on pace to potentially double that number.Prior to the start of the Olympics, Gu had over 2.1 million followers, so she did see a bump. But it could not compare to the meteoric surge for Liu, who is one of the most ascendant figures in all of sports at the moment. Even Gu herself got involved in the hype over Liu. Gu commented on Liu’s post celebrating the gold medal, cheering her on. “YESSSSSS,” Gu wrote in the comment section. The two Chinese-American stars have been relentlessly compared and contrasted on social media this Olympics. Both athletes are the children of immigrants who came to the U.S. from China. But many fans and critics have been quick to point out the contrast between Liu’s story, a tale of American loyalty by an immigrant’s child, and Gu, who chose to compete for Team China when she was 15 years old despite living in California.Arthur Liu raised Alysa and her siblings in Oakland. Yan Gu raised Eileen just across the bay in San Francisco.Their paths diverged in 2019.The Chinese government launched a program to recruit foreign-born athletes, primarily with Chinese heritage, to boost competitiveness, notably for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and soccer, according to The China Project.Gu and Liu were top recruiting targets.Gu traded in her red, white and blue for red and gold. Just months after competing in her first Freestyle Ski World Cup for the U.S. in January 2019, she competed for China for the first time in June of that year after requesting a change of nation with the International Ski Federation.The Lius remained loyal to Team USA.US OLYMPIAN ALYSA LIU WAS ONCE TARGETED BY CHINESE SPIES – HERE’S WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY ABOUT ITArthur was reportedly “not open to persuasion” to having Alysa compete for China, according to The Economist.Liu and her family then found themselves in the crosshairs of C
Alysa Liu’s social media following surges after Winter Olympics gold medal, surpassing Eileen Gu
