Alysa Liu Clinches Gold for the USA in Olympic Women’s Free Skating Event

The rink at the Milan Cortina Games not only lit up with its usual brilliance but also highlighted a momentous chapter in Olympic history.

It’s been a long journey since Sarah Hughes captivated the world with her victory in Salt Lake City, marking the last time an American woman stood at the pinnacle of the Olympic figure skating podium. Sasha Cohen’s silver win in 2006 was the most recent medal achievement for U.S. women in this sport.

However, this year, 20-year-old Alysa Liu has etched her name alongside these legends.

Hailing from Clovis, California, Liu trains at the St. Moritz Skating Club in Oakland. She entered the women’s free skate competition on Thursday with the potential to reshape the history books.

In a spectacular performance, Liu secured first place in the women’s free skating event at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan. She achieved a personal season-best score of 150.20, culminating in a total of 226.79.

Japan’s Ami Nakai and Kaori Sakamoto led the field after Tuesday’s short program.

Liu entered the night trailing Nakai by just over two points and sitting less than a point behind Sakamoto after delivering a pristine 76.59 in Tuesday’s short program — a career-best under Olympic pressure. It was technical. It was clean. It was hers.

Earlier in these Games, Liu helped secure Olympic gold for Team USA in the team event, finishing second in the short program behind Sakamoto and anchoring a collective triumph.

“I really loved doing the team event,” she said earlier this month. “The Olympic team felt a little different and really special.” 

Liu became the youngest U.S. champion in history when she won at the age of 13. By the time she qualified for the Beijing Olympics at the age of 16 — when she finished in sixth place — she was labeled the next in line of American figure skating royalty behind Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinksi.

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However, Liu got burned out and briefly retired after the 2022 Olympics, enrolling at nearby UCLA to study psychology. 

“I really despised skating,” she said. “Through time I realized it doesn’t have to be like that.”

Liu returned to skating in 2024, and last year she became the first American woman to win a world title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006. In Milan, she arrived not as a prodigy but as an artist.

“I love the process of creating things,” she said. “Skating is one way to express myself.”

That ethos carried her through Thursday’s free skate, whether the blades carved gold or simply closure. She has insisted all week she doesn’t measure herself against Nakai or Sakamoto.

“Whether I beat them or not is not my goal. My goal is just to do my programs and share my story,” she said.

The rest of the American contingent faltered. Amber Glenn stumbled to 13th. Isabeau Levito slid to eighth. That left Liu — in the group nicknamed the “Blade Angels” — as the last American woman within striking distance of ending the Olympic drought.

And maybe that’s the point.

She doesn’t skate to carry a nation anymore. She skates because she wants to. Because training is her playground. Because competition is her “guilty pleasure.” Because the rink no longer owns her — she owns it.

She once quit the sport to save herself.

Now she skates like someone who came back on her own terms.