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Team USA women’s figure skater Alysa Liu won gold in the women’s free skate final on 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 Turin Games, and the last American woman to win a gold medal in singles figure skating was Sarah Hughes, who accomplished that achievement in 2002, when the Winter Games were held in Salt Lake City.
She performed all of her jumps and smiled throughout, and burst into a demonstrative celebration after finishing. She was even heard shouting, “That’s what I’m talking about!” and “holy shit!” while celebrating with his team.
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Alysa Liu of the United States competes during the women’s figure skating free program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Liu finished with a total score of 226.79, a free skate score of 150.20 and a short program score of 76.59. It was his best score of the season in the free skate.
But she still had to see her Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai chase her.
Sakamoto was only good enough to finish right behind Liu. Nakai seemed to get much closer, as there was noticeable tension in the crowd as the judges reviewed Nakai’s moves before handing out their final score. But once they announced that Nakai had come up short, the crowd erupted in celebration for Liu.
Liu was the only American woman to qualify for a shot 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 US in an individual figure skating event after his teammates fell short, men’s star Ilia Malinin falling to eighth place after two falls.
Liu has become a US fan favorite this year, playing a key role in helping her country win gold in the team event after her dramatic comeback story. He has just returned to the world stage after a brief retirement following his performance at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.
Just before her appearance at the Beijing 2022 games, she and her father were the target of an espionage operation by the Chinese government.
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Alysa Liu of the United States competes during the women’s figure skating free program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Liu called the experience “a little strange and exciting.”
“You know what I mean? It’s so… unbelievable. You know what I mean, that’s crazy,” Liu previously told Pak Gazette Digital in a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
“Imagine finding out that at such a young age. I mean, in a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like on some prank show?’ Is this world real? I must be some movie character. But, I mean, it was like it made sense to me, you know, because of everything my father did in his activist days.”
He does not rule out seeing his life and experience in an international espionage incident adapted to film.
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Alysa Liu of the United States arrives to compete during the women’s figure skating free program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Still, he has some preferences if his story makes it to the big screen.
“They have to make me look like some cool hero or something. And I can’t just be the girl who got spied on and didn’t do anything about it,” she said. “But honestly, I would like the main focus to be my father’s story, because his story is great and also like everything that happened because of what he did, so I feel like we have to start with the roots.”
