Alysa Liu completed a stunning comeback to competitive figure skating by winning the first Olympic women’s figure skating gold medal for the United States in 24 years on Thursday night.
The 20-year-old from Clovis, California, who vanished from the sport nearly four years ago uncertain if she’d ever return, delivered a career-best long program to overtake Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai. Skating in a shimmering gold dress to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite, Liu cleanly landed all seven of her triple jumps, including three in combination, and drew a standing ovation before finishing with 226.79 points overall.
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about,” Liu said as she left the ice. As the scores were announced she shook her head with knowing approval while she was hugged by her coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali.
Sakamoto finished with 224.90 points over both segments to take silver, her lone mistakes coming on her triple flip, double axel combo and triple loop. The 17-year-old Nakai, the youngest skater of the 29 entrants who came in first after the short program, made several errors in the second half of her program to finish ninth in the free skate and slip to bronze with an overall score of 219.16.
Liu, the surprise world champion a year ago and now a double Olympic champion after last week’s team event, became the first American woman to win individual figure skating gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002. The last US woman to reach an Olympic podium was Sasha Cohen in 2006.
Japan’s Mone Chiba came in fourth, one place ahead of three-time US champion Amber Glenn, who had finished a disappointing 13th in the short, but whose redemptive long program ended her Olympics on a high note.
“It wasn’t easy,” Glenn said. “There’s been a bombardment of attacks and hate on me, using my lackluster performance as fuel for hate, and that was disheartening. I just thought, ‘I’m going do what I do best, which is enjoy skating’, and that’s what I did today.”
But the night belonged to Liu, who skated third-to-last with the rollicking crowd in her thrall. By the time she closed with a graceful layback spin, the 12,000-seat arena was a white-hot wall of sound. She then watched as Sakamoto and Nakai skated beautifully, but failed to meet her mark.
“I had dinner with [my family] last night and that was unbelievable,” Liu said. “But another unbelievable feeling was just when I was skating. When I was skating, hearing the cheers, I felt so connected with this audience. I want to be out there again.”
The outcome was the culmination of one of the most unusual arcs in the sport’s history. Liu burst on to the scene in 2019 as the youngest ever US national champion at the age of 13. She repeated the feat a year later, then competed at the 2022 Olympics and won bronze at that year’s worlds – before abruptly retiring that same spring, citing fatigue and burnout.
She stayed away for nearly two years. But by mid-2023, she was back training in California, with eyes on rediscovering joy in her sport and possibly targeting these Winter Olympics.
Adeliia Petrosian, the three-time Russian champion entered as an individual neutral athlete and a dangerous flier for gold despite entering Thursday in fifth place. She had hopes of a medal due to her planned quadruple toeloop, but clattered to the ice on the potential difference-making jump. The protege of controversial coach Eteri Tutberidze still managed a fifth-best free skate score of 141.64 to finish sixth.
“I feel a little ashamed,” Petrosian said, “for myself, for the federation, for my coaches and for the spectators that it went this way. I understand that it’s my own fault.”
Liu became the eight US woman to win figure skating’s biggest prize before an audience that included former Olympic champion Tenley Albright, who became the first at the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Games.
