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Team USA women’s skater Alysa Liu won gold in the women’s free skate final Thursday, ending a 20-year drought for American women to medal in the event and a 24-year drought to win gold.
The last American woman to win a singles figure skating medal at the Olympics was Sasha Cohen at the 2006 Games in Turin, and the last American woman to win a gold medal in figure skating was Sarah Hughes, who accomplished that feat in 2002 when the Winter Games were held in Salt Lake City.
She landed all her jumps smiling all the way through and exploded into a demonstrative celebration after she finished. She was even heard shouting, “that’s what I’m talking about!” and “holy s—!” as she celebrated with her team.
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Alysa Liu of the United States competes during the women’s free figure skating program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Liu finished with 226.79 total score, 150.20 free skate score, 76.59 short program score. It was her season best in free skate scores.
But she still had to watch Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai go after her.
Sakamoto was only good enough to come up just behind Liu. Nakai appeared to be getting much closer as there was a palpable tension in the crowd as the judges reviewed Nakai’s moves before delivering her final score. But when they announced that Nakai had fallen short, the crowd erupted in celebration for Liu.
Liu was the only American woman to qualify for a chance at the podium after Tuesday’s short program, as teammates Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito fell short.
All the pressure was on Liu to win a gold for the United States in individual figure skating after her teammates fell short, men’s star Ilia Malinin dropping to eighth place after two falls.
Liu has become a fan favorite for the United States this year, playing a key role in helping her country win gold in the team event following her dramatic comeback story. She has only just returned to the world stage after a brief retirement following her performance at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
Just before her appearance at the 2022 Beijing Games, she and her father were the targets of a spy operation by the Chinese government.
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Alysa Liu of the United States competes during the women’s free figure skating program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Liu called the experience “a little bit freaky and exciting.”
“You know what I mean? It’s so… unbelievable. You know what I mean, it’s crazy,” Liu previously told Pakinomist Digital at a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
“Like, imagine finding that out at such a young age, I mean, like in a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like on a prank show?’ Like, this world is really like I got to be a movie character. But I mean, it kind of made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days.”
She has not ruled out seeing her life and experience in an international espionage incident, adapted into a film.
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Alysa Liu of the United States arrives to compete during the women’s free figure skating program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Still, she has some preferences if her story makes it to the big screen.
“They have to make me look like a super cool hero or something. And just, I can’t just be the kid who got spied on and didn’t do anything about it,” she said. “But honestly, I just wanted the main focus to be like my dad’s story, because like his story is so cool and also like everything that only happened because of what he did, so I feel like we got to start with the roots.”
