LAAX, Switzerland (AP) — Two-time Olympic champion Eileen Gu shook off a crash and celebrated her second straight slopestyle title at the Laax Open on Saturday.
Gu had already locked up victory before she set out on her second run. She tried a double cork 1080 — that's two head-over-heels flips — but fell hard on her right side with one ski and her poles flying off after coming up short on a rotation.
After gathering herself on the slope, she skied gently down to the finish and appeared not to be seriously hurt. She smiled and waved to the camera when she stood by second-placed Marin Hamill of the U.S. and third-placed Lara Wolf of Austria.
“I’m OK," Gu said. “I don’t really like taking a victory lap, so I wanted to just do something to keep pushing and show my best out here. But that’s the sport, sometimes you fall, so it’s OK.”
Slopestyle is the only event where Gu fell short of gold at the Beijing Games four years ago and will enter the Milan Cortina Winter Games next month as the favorite to add it to her Olympic medals collection. She claimed gold in halfpipe and big air — in addition to her silver in slopestyle — in 2022.
The American-born star who competes for China went last in the lineup thanks to her leading qualifying score. She didn't need to land the second run after nobody surpassed the 85.13 she earned over her flawless opening trip through the course's rails and jumps.
Home favorite Mathilde Gremaud, the Swiss skier who edged Gu for gold in 2022, finished seventh.
At age 22, Gu’s win was her record-extending 20th World Cup career victory and her fourth in slopestyle.
“That’s so special. First of all, I can’t believe it’s been that many,” she said. “Secondly, I think every one gets harder and I think people sometimes take it for granted."
In the men’s slopestyle event, Birk Ruud of Norway won his third straight Laax title.
Freestyle skiing and snowboarding at Milan Cortina will be held in Livigno, a three-hour drive northeast of Milan in the Italian Alps. Snowboarding starts on Feb. 5 with freestyle skiing commencing two days later.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Winner Birk Ruud of Norway, center, second placed Matej Svancer of Austria, left, and third placed Evan Mceachran of Canada celebrate on the podium after the final run of the Freeski Slopestyle World Cup at the Laax Open, in Laax, Switzerland. (Andreas Becker/Keystone via AP)
Ailing Eileen Gu of China in action during the final run of the Freeski Slopestyle World Cup at Laax Open, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Laax, Switzerland. (Andreas Becker/Keystone via AP)
Ailing Eileen Gu of China celebrates winning the final run of the Freeski Slopestyle World Cup at Laax Open, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Laax, Switzerland. (Andreas Becker/Keystone via AP)
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would charge a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of their opposition to American control of Greenland, setting up a potentially dangerous test of U.S. partnerships in Europe.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland would face the tariff, Trump said in a social media post while at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rate would climb to 25% on June 1 if no deal was in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States, he said.
The Republican president appeared to indicate that he was using the tariffs as leverage to force talks with Denmark and other European countries over the status of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark that he regards as critical to U.S. national security.
“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The tariff threat could mark a problematic rupture between Trump and America's longtime NATO partners, further straining an alliance that dates to 1949 and provides a collective degree of security to Europe and North America. Trump has repeatedly tried to use trade penalties to bend allies and rivals alike to his will, generating investment commitments from some nations and pushback from others, notably China.
Trump is scheduled to travel on Tuesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he likely will run into the European leaders he just threatened with tariffs that would start in little more than two weeks.
There are immediate questions about how the White House could try to implement the threatened tariffs because the European Union is a single economic zone in terms of trading, according to a European diplomat who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was unclear, too, how Trump could act under U.S. law, though he could cite emergency economic powers that are currently subject to a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.
Trump has long said he thinks the U.S. should own the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which has a population of about 57,000 and whose defense is provided by Denmark. He intensified his calls a day after the military operation to oust Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
The president indicated the tariffs were retaliation for what appeared to be the deployment of s ymbolic levels of troops from the European countries to Greenland, which he has said was essential for the “Golden Dome” missile defense system for the U.S., He also has argued that Russia and China might try to take over the island.
The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, the Danish foreign minister has said. That base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.
Resistance has steadily built in Europe to Trump's ambitions even as several countries on the continent agreed to his 15% tariffs last year in order to preserve an economic and security relationship with Washington.
Earlier Saturday, hundreds of people in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, braved near-freezing temperatures, rain and icy streets to march in a rally in support of their own self-governance.
Tillie Martinussen, a former member of Greenland’s parliament, said the push to preserve NATO and Greenland's autonomy were more important than facing tariffs, though she added that she was not dismissing the potential economic impact.
“This is a fight for freedom," she said. "It’s for NATO, it’s for everything the Western Hemisphere has been fighting for since World War II.”
Thousands of people also marched through Copenhagen, many of them carrying Greenland’s flag. Some held signs with slogans such as “Make America Smart Again” and “Hands Off.”
“This is important for the whole world,” Danish protester Elise Riechie told The Associated Press as she held Danish and Greenlandic flags. “There are many small countries. None of them are for sale.”
The rallies occurred hours after a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers, while visiting Copenhagen, sought to reassure Denmark and Greenland of their support.
Danish Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, leader of the Joint Arctic Command, told the AP that Denmark does not expect the U.S. military to attack Greenland, or any other NATO ally, and that European troops were recently deployed to Nuuk for Arctic defense training.
He said the goal is not to send a message to the Trump administration, even through the White House has not ruled out taking the territory by force.
“I will not go into the political part, but I will say that I would never expect a NATO country to attack another NATO country,” he said from aboard a Danish military vessel docked in Nuuk. “For us, for me, it’s not about signaling. It is actually about training military units, working together with allies.”
The Danish military organized a planning meeting Friday in Greenland with NATO allies, including the U.S., to discuss Arctic security on the alliance’s northern flank in the face of a potential Russian threat. The Americans were also invited to participate in Operation Arctic Endurance in Greenland in the coming days, Andersen said.
In his 2½ years as a commander in Greenland, Andersen said that he hasn't seen any Chinese or Russian combat vessels or warships, despite Trump saying that they were off the island's coast.
But in the unlikely event of American troops using force on Danish soil, Andersen confirmed that Danish soldiers have an obligation to fight back.
Trump has contended that China and Russia have their own designs on Greenland and its vast untapped reserves of critical minerals. He said recently that anything less than the Arctic island being in U.S. hands would be “unacceptable.”
The president has seen tariffs as a tool to get what he wants without having to resort to military actions. At the White House on Friday, he recounted how he had threatened European allies with tariffs on pharmaceuticals and he teased the possibility of doing so again.
“I may do that for Greenland, too,” Trump said.
Earlier in the week, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met in Washington with Trump's vice president, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio.
That session did not resolve the deep differences, but it did produce an agreement to set up a working group — on whose purpose Denmark and the White House then offered sharply diverging public views.
European leaders have said that it is only for Denmark and Greenland to decide on matters concerning the territory, and Denmark said this week that it was increasing its military presence in Greenland in cooperation with allies.
“There is almost no better ally to the United States than Denmark,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., while visiting Copenhagen with other members of Congress. “If we do things that cause Danes to question whether we can be counted on as a NATO ally, why would any other country seek to be our ally or believe in our representations?”
Burrows reported from Nuuk, Greeland, and Niemann from Copenhagen, Denmark. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, Aamer Madhani in Washington and Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka in Nuuk, Greenland contributed to this report.
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
A patch of the Joint Arctic Command is seen on o jacket of Major General Søren Andersen standing onboard a military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy docked in Nuuk, Greenland, on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People gather for a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
People march during a pro- Greenlanders demonstration, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
Icicles hang from the roof of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Danish serviceman walks in front of Joint Arctic Command center in Nuuk, Greenland, on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Senator Chris Coons from the Democratic Party speaks during a press conference with the American delegation, consisting of senators and members of the House of Representatives, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
