MILAN — Winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating is easy. All you have to do is win a national championship at age 13, burn out and retire at 16, come back, dismiss your scores like they’re spam e-mails, return to the Olympics, nail your short program and then console your friend who didn’t, relax with late-night dinners with your siblings and friends … and then, with the world watching, put on a gold dress that could light a cave and take the words “free skate” as literally as anybody ever has.
Alysa Liu is the eighth American woman to win the individual gold medal and the first to do so unintentionally. If she leaned into joy any harder, the j would touch the y.
