I didn’t let myself believe she could win. I told myself I would be over the moon if Alysa Liu simply got a bronze medal. My heart has been broken too many times by wishing that my favorite would win gold in women’s figure skating. Nancy Kerrigan in 1994? Silver. Michelle Kwan in 1998 and 2002? Silver and bronze. Sasha Cohen in 2006? Silver.
While I loved seeing Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes win in ’98 and ’02, both victories felt bittersweet as I had to watch Kwan, the greatest of all time, fall short when it counted most. Then, in the 20 years since 2006, U.S. women didn’t win any individual figure skating medals at the Olympics, and I got used to American dominance being a thing of the past.
That all ended on Thursday night, when Alysa Liu executed an exuberant and electrifying free skate to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” that vaulted her to Olympic gold. I haven’t stopped smiling since. The carefree 20-year-old from California has carved a new, healthier path for women’s skating that seems powered by joy rather than fear. But before I get to breaking down what made Liu so brilliant, let’s look at how the rest of the women shaped up.
After the heartbreak of the short program, Amber Glenn said she was just looking for an Olympic memory that would make her happy. Sitting in 13th place going into the free skate, with practically no hope of getting a medal, Glenn rose to the occasion and threw down a season’s-best performance.
She opened with a beautifully confident triple axel, perhaps the best she’s ever done in competition. In a program of calm, focused power, she went on to nail her next five jumping passes. The only jump standing in the way of a clean skate was her nemesis, the triple loop—the jump that she had popped in the short program, dashing her Olympic dreams. The dreaded triple loop got the best of her again, and she put her hand down on the ice on the landing.
Released from the pressure of jumping, though, the end of Glenn’s program soared. As she performed a spiral past the Olympic rings, I could sense that she was taking in the moment while also remembering every ounce of hard work it had taken to get her there. Whereas Liu seems totally carefree, Glenn skates like she’s lived the life of Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road, and I mean that as the highest of compliments. It was especially nice, then, to see her begin to appreciate how far she’s come.
Glenn’s free skate was Thursday’s third-highest-scoring program, and had her sitting in the leader’s chair for much of the night. She ultimately landed in fifth place, only 4.25 points off the podium. The base value of a triple loop is 4.9 points, so mathematically that one mistake in the short program was indeed enough to cost her an Olympic medal. But the truth is, these two skates don’t exist independent of one another. Would Glenn have had the fire and focus she brought to the free skate if it hadn’t been for the letdown of the short program? We’ll never know. Skating is an ocean of mental turbulence and all you can do is try to stay afloat.
The next American to skate was Isabeau Levito, who had placed eighth in the short program. Continuing with the Italian theme of her short program, which featured a Sophia Loren medley, Levito performed her free skate to Cinema Paradiso. She is such a lovely skater to watch because of her precision and grace, every limb always in the exact right position. She’s the ice princess you’d order from the catalog.
On Thursday, it was a bit as if the catalog skater we’d ordered was damaged in transit. Usually known for her consistency, Levito fell on her opening triple flip, and thus was unable to complete a planned triple toe loop in combination. From there, it seemed that she was missing her usual sparkle. She stayed vertical on the remainder of her jumping passes, but never inserted that missed triple toe loop elsewhere in the program. For me, this wasn’t a defeat for Levito so much as a warmup for 2030. Lest we forget, Liu finished sixth in 2022, but she got the Olympic experience she needed to show up this year as Alysa 2.0. While an Olympic medal in the hometown of Levito’s nonna would have been cinematic, I foresee success for her in the French Alps four years from now.
Of the real medal contenders, the Individual Neutral Athlete (aka the Russian) Adeliya Petrosian was the first to skate. She was the only skater who attempted a quadruple jump in this event, even though she has not landed a clean one all season. That trend continued, as went for a quadruple toe loop as the first element of her program, underrotated it, and went down hard. From that moment, it was a skate of no consequence that I will forget as soon as I finish this paragraph. If I may say something nice about Petrosian, her free skate to a tango medley was a huge step up in maturity from her Michael Jackson short program, and I hope she continues in this direction artistically. Yes, it was quite empty from a performance standpoint; I felt nothing. But after the full body cringe I felt watching her moonwalk the other night, nothing was a step up. Petrosian landed her remaining triples but her final score was only enough for sixth place. For the first time since 2010, there is no Russian woman on the Olympic podium.
Reigning world bronze medalist Mone Chiba of Japan skated next. Her free skate was very pretty and light as air, but something about it screamed fourth place, which is where she ended up. Watching her skate to Romeo + Juliet, I felt a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio looking at Claire Danes through the fish tank. She was a beautiful vision that was a little bit out of focus. Chiba’s jumps seemed tight throughout, and she lost points due to some slight underrotations. There wasn’t much wrong with this program, but ultimately there wasn’t enough right to merit a medal.
When I saw Alysa Liu glide onto the ice for her warmup, I knew that I didn’t have to worry. Waving at the crowd and beaming, it was as if she was about to perform at the exhibition gala rather than the medal-deciding free skate. Liu, who stepped away from the sport after the 2022 Olympics and World Championships at age 16, came back two years later with a commitment to skate with joy. When an interviewer asked her whether she feels stressed at the Olympics, Liu said, “Oh hell no. … Competitions are where I’m least stressed because people get to see what I do. That’s why I do it. So I can share my work.” It’s a mindset so healthy I wish I could inject it into my own brain.
From the opening beats of “Macarthur Park,” Liu was inside the music, lost in a disco fantasy. It’s as if she’s the first skater in years to remember that the inherent quality of ice is that it slides and that she should lean into its flowy nature by relaxing fully. Her musical choice, a repeat of last season’s free skate which won her the World Championship, was brilliantly crowd-pleasing in an event that too often features dirge-like classical pieces that insist on their own importance. This bouncy and joyful performance had the audience clapping along and ready to roar. Liu completed seven triple jumps, and while she didn’t have a triple axel or quadruple jump like champions of Olympics past, this was a triumph that proved that figure skating is about so much more than jumping.
Skating off the ice after having commandeered the arena, the cool-as-hell Cali girl looked into the camera and said, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” I couldn’t help but laugh at how different Liu is from the overly media-trained U.S. women of years past. And then the score: a season’s best 150.20 that launched her into first place.
At that point, Liu was guaranteed a medal. I was ready to call it a day. Bronze was more than enough; the medal drought was over! And Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto was still to come.
The reigning bronze medalist, Sakamoto had previously announced that she was retiring after these Games. In the short program, she looked poised to check the last item off her skating bucket list: winning Olympic gold.
On Thursday night, skating to an Edith Piaf medley, Sakamoto was head and shoulders above the rest of the field in artistic maturity; I particularly love her speed and edge quality. Sakamoto completed her first four jumping passes without incident, but on this night something about her performance felt a bit workman-like, just checking off boxes. She then struggled to hold on to a triple flip landing and bailed on including a triple toe loop in combination thereafter. Sakamoto was unable to add that combination back in later in the program, leaving a significant amount of points on the table. As the music transitioned to Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien” (French for “no, I regret nothing”), it seemed that Sakamoto might indeed leave the ice with regrets. Towards the end of the program, her skirt unfortunately got caught in one of the straps on the back of her dress, a visual symbol of everything being just a little bit off. Sakamoto’s score left her 1.89 points shy of Liu’s mark, a total that would ultimately be enough for silver.
Last to skate was Ami Nakai of Japan. Only 17 years old, the youngest figure skater in the event, a victory for her would not have been unprecedented—in fact, it would have been deeply precedented. Lipinski, Hughes, Alina Zagitova, and Anna Shcherbakova all won gold as teenagers over older skaters from their own countries who were considered gold-medal favorites. At these Games, Nakai was sitting in first place after a squeaky-clean short program that featured a triple axel. Skating to a cover of “What a Wonderful World” by Lexi Walker, music a bit too treacly for my taste, Nakai opened with a bang, hitting another triple axel. She floated through the rest of the program with only minor visible errors to the naked eye, such as popping out of the second half of a triple lutz-triple toe combination, only completing a double. Underrotations on a triple flip and triple loop also proved costly as the technical panel chipped away at her score after reviewing her elements. It was a skate that went down easy, and was entirely pleasant to watch, but not something that stirs the soul enough to rack up big points on the artistic side of the ledger. When Nakai finished, she put a quizzical finger on her chin as if wondering, “Will that be enough?” The judges were not as kind to Nakai as they had been in the short program, placing her ninth in the free skate for a total score that was only enough for bronze.
When Nakai’s score popped up on the screen, making it clear that Alysa Liu was our new Olympic champion, I screamed so loudly that I buried my face in a pillow for fear of upsetting the neighbors. I then removed the pillow and kept screaming because this hasn’t happened in 24 years! Who knows when I’ll see it again? The neighbors can deal with it!
Alysa Liu, Olympic champion.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
What took so long for an American woman to win gold again? Undoubtedly, the period of Russian dominance from 2014 to 2022 was a factor, causing skaters to feel they didn’t have a chance against a seemingly endless field of teenage quad-jumping machines. But more than anything, I think the secret to this gold medal renaissance was Liu’s rediscovery of the joy in skating.
When watching skating with friends, I always used to give them this context: What you have to understand is that all these skaters are living inside a nightmare. When you hear the door to the boards closing behind you, it can feel like you’re entering the Coliseum for a battle to the death. The pressure and the stakes are that high.
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Alysa Liu has chosen to see skating in an entirely different way. It feels crazy to say this, but Liu’s philosophy reminds me of how the kids defeat Pennywise the clown at the end of It. Hear me out. Liu looked straight at the Olympic rings and said, “I’m not scared of you.” And then, as if by magic, the Games no longer had any power over her. At the 2026 Olympics, Liu showed there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to lose, only opportunities to shine.
Last Olympics, I considered walking away from the sport as a viewer. I was haunted by the image of a Russian girl, 15-year-old Kamila Valieva, melting down and being berated by her coach while her gold-medalist teammate was left alone to celebrate with no one.
This time around, thanks to Alysa Liu, the gold-medal moment was filled with joy. The 20-year-old American ran over to the bronze medalist, Japan’s Nakai, and picked her up in a hug, both women overflowing with emotion, genuinely happy for each other’s success. What Liu taught us—and taught me—is that while skating can be scary and stressful, it doesn’t have to be that way.
After that women’s free skate, I’m definitely not walking away from the sport; I’m running back towards it with open arms. Thank you, Alysa Liu, for making figure skating a joy to watch again.
Chris Schleicher
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