The Natural isn’t anywhere close to being a great sports movie, but it’s still worth watching for its handful of truly magical, wonderfully shot moments: “Wonderboy” knocking the stuffing out of a baseball. Roy Hobbs’ final at bat — with the stadium lights exploding like fireworks.
One of its most poignant moments was the “two lives” speech between Glenn Close and Robert Redford:
Iris Gaines: You know, I believe we have two lives.
Roy Hobbes: How… what do you mean?
Iris Gaines: The life we learn with and the life we live with after that.
It’s a not-so-subtle nod to the dark danger of duality — and the tragedy of mistaking the former for the latter: A man isn’t defined by his past; he’s defined by what he does with it.
Brands also struggle with duality, because there are (almost) always two of them: the brand they are, and the brand they aspire to be.
Most marketing campaigns are designed to reconcile the two. (That’s all a marketing campaign actually is: a roadmap that brings you from Point A to Point B.) But not always: Some don’t attempt to reconcile, because it’s contrary to its business model.
Take, for instance, the Olympic Games. According to its official website:
The three values of olympism are excellence, respect and friendship. They constitute the foundation on which the olympic movement builds its activities to promote sport, culture and education with a view to building a better world.
Which is a cute, laudable sentiment. Only a monster would oppose excellence, respect, and friendship! (As was the Olympics’ “Stronger Together” campaign, which eerily echoed the sloganeering of a certain failed ex-Democratic presidential nominee.)
But when you strip away the platitudes, what the Olympics is REALLY selling is pure, naked nationalism. That’s its entire conceit!
Think about it: Why do we compete via country? Why do we wave all the flags? Why do we track the medal counts and play the national anthems of the winners?
If the Olympic Games wanted to, it could simply showcase the world’s top athletes. Just line ‘em up and find out who’s the best — no flags, no anthems, no nationalism — just “excellence, respect, and friendship.” There’s no law against it, right?
But there’s no money in that!
Nationalism stirs our passions. It pulls in viewers. It creates intrigue, anticipation, and bragging rights.
And it’s why PR-obsessed countries like China pay ridiculous sums of money to their “amateur” athletes.
Which brings us to the curious case of Eileen Gu, the American-born Olympian who attended college at Stanford yet competes under the flag of communist China. (Another topic that VIP readers discussed first: Membership has its privileges.)
Ever since Eileen Gu decided to compete under the flag of China, and not the United States where she was born, her citizenship has been the subject of scrutiny and controversy.
Born in San Francisco, she said her decision to switch allegiance back in 2019 had everything to do with “inspiring” children from the country of her mother at the Olympics in her home country. That would be the 2022 Beijing Games, where Gu won two golds and a silver for China in freestyle skiing.
Is she still an American citizen? According to the Olympic bylaws, “any competitor in the Olympic Games must be a national of the country,” and China “does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.”
Yet the status of her U.S. citizenship remains a mystery: There’s more transparency over the Epstein Files than Gu’s citizenship status!
From Gu’s interview with TIME Magazine:
Questions about Gu’s citizenship status, rather than the dramatic victory, dominated the post-event press conference. Olympians must be citizens of the country they represent, and China does not allow dual citizenship. But no evidence suggests that Gu has renounced her American citizenship. So did China make an exception for Gu? During an hours-long interview in the Scharnitz rental house she’s sharing with Yan, Gu declines to engage on the citizenship question. “I don’t really see how that’s relevant,” she says. (The Chinese Olympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment.)
Why would an American-born, American-educated woman forsake the U.S. and choose to represent an authoritarian, communist regime? Especially a regime that seeks to displace the U.S. on the global stage?
[Laughs in capitalism]
She’s since become a millionaire many times over, mainly do to her online presence and endorsements, not her skiing. She was the fourth-highest earning female athlete in 2025, earning upwards of $23 million. According to Sportico, all but $20,000 of that $23 million came from endorsements.
Now, she’s back in the Olympics, still competing for China and, reportedly, being paid handsomely to do so.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for “striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.” In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the last three years.
Making $23 million per year as an “amateur athlete,” in a sport that pays $20,000 annually, while snubbing America to represent a communist country(!) ought to be an Olympic event, too: It requires so many illogical twists, turns, and mental backflips, it’d give Mary Lou Retton vertigo.
Eileen Gu isn’t the first American to take Chinese money: U.S. Navy sailor Jinchao Wei sold military information to China for the princely sum of $12,000 and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In 2023, Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao was convicted of selling American military secrets to China for less than $15,000.
Say what you want about Eileen Gu, but at least she held out for top dollar!
Nor has she been afraid to voice her opinion about President Donald Trump. After U.S. skier Hunter Hess said he had “mixed emotions” about representing the mean ol’ U.S. in the Age of Trump, Gu condemned Trump’s criticism of Hess: “It really runs contrary to everything the Olympics should be.”
But she won’t dare say a peep about China, Tiananmen Square, or the ongoing genocide of the Uighurs:
She doesn’t believe it’s her place to comment on, say, China’s checkered human-rights record. For example, the U.S. government has accused China of abuses against its majority-Muslim Uighur population. “I’m not an expert on this,” she says. “I haven’t done the research. I don’t think it’s my business. I’m not going to make big claims on my social media.” But as a Stanford international-relations major, she could surely do her homework on this issue, no? “I’m just more of a skeptic when it comes to data in general,” says Gu. “So it’s not like I can read an article and be like, ‘Oh, well, this must be the truth.’ I need to have a ton of evidence. I need to maybe go to the place, maybe talk to 10 primary-source people who are in a location and have experienced life there. Then I need to go see images. I need to listen to recordings. I need to think about how history affects it. Then I need to read books on how politics affects it. This is a lifelong search.”
Some of Gu’s harshest critics aren’t politicians, but other athletes. Enes Kanter Freedom, a Muslim of Kurdish descent who played 11 years in the NBA, wrote:
Eileen Gu is a traitor.
— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) February 10, 2026
She was born in America, raised in America, lives in America, and chose to compete against her own country for the worst human rights abuser on the planet, China.
She built her fame in a free country, then chose to represent an authoritarian regime while…
His last two paragraphs said it all:
You don’t get to enjoy the freedoms of U.S. citizenship while acting as a global PR asset for the Chinese Communist Party. By choosing to promote the CCP on the world stage, Eileen Gu forfeited any moral claim to America and should not keep her U.S. citizenship.
She chose Communism over Freedom.
After all, not everyone in Gu’s position would’ve made the same decision. Take, for example, Alysa Liu, the Gold medal-winning Olympic champion of Chinese descent — who now proudly represents Team America.
She was also spied on by communist China when she was just 16.
Alysa Liu was just 16 years old when she met with an FBI agent at a Japanese restaurant to find out she and her family were being spied on by the Chinese government.
It was early 2022, Liu was just about to compete in figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. It was the first time she visited father Arthur's home country, which he fled as a refugee decades earlier. The Liu family had become targets of the country's spies due to his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
As the BBC described Liu:
The 20-year-old is the daughter of Arthur Liu, who fled China after taking part in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. The student-led pro-democracy movement ended in a brutal massacre in Beijing. The subject remains taboo in China, and any references to it are swiftly censored.
Her family history might partly explain why there aren't too many posts about Liu on Chinese social media. Those that do praise her usually have comments below such as: "Why are you praising this person? Her whole family is anti-China".
But we won’t ever hear Gu standing up for Liu, and the reason is obvious: That’s not why China invested millions in her!
She’s a PR prop for an ugly, repressive, anti-American communist regime. Which is why she’s an “amateur athlete” from an anti-capitalist country who still gets the big bucks — and it’s why the Chi-Coms are so delighted with her endorsement:
China is getting its money’s worth!
However, the Olympic Games won’t last forever. Eventually, all athletes get old; their knees crumble, and their bodies break down. Already, Gu has a long history of injuries. The day will soon come when her athletic career is over.
Like they say, Father Time is undefeated.
And then she’ll find herself in the same situation as Roy Hobbs: Trapped between the world of what once was — and whatever comes next.
Because, immediately after Glenn Close gave her “two lives” speech, she added: “With or without the records, they’ll remember you.”
Yes, America will remember Eileen Gu. But we won’t forgive her.
And she no longer deserves to be an American citizen.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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