Alysa Liu, bursting with joy, wins first U.S. Olympic women’s figure skating gold in 24 years

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MILAN — Phillip DiGuglielmo poured himself a glass of a California red and tried his best to talk her out of it.

“Nobody walks away and comes back,” he said, re-telling the story of a conversation he had with Alysa Liu from 2024. “Rachael Flatt tried. Gracie Gold tried. Lots of people try because they love it — and that’s great. But they’re not successful at it.”

But this wasn’t Flatt. Or Gold. Or any of the others who tried. This was Liu. The youngest woman to land a triple axel in international competition. The first woman to combine a quadruple jump with a triple axel. The same girl who won two U.S. championships and made the Olympic team before junior prom.

After more than two hours into the FaceTime call, with the bottle of wine empty, and DiGuglielmo out of reasons to say no, he said yes. He would coach Liu in her return to figure skating after her two-year retirement.

“Well,” DiGuglielmo recalled Liu saying, “I’m younger than all of them.”

Two years later, at 20, she’s an Olympic champion. The face of U.S. figure skating. A true American treasure after these Milan Cortina Games, and the first U.S. woman to win Olympic gold in her sport in the last 24 years.

The platform she wanted, she now owns.

“I think my story is more important than anything,” Liu said. “To me. That’s what I hold dear, and this journey has been incredible, and my life has just been — I have no complaints. I’m just so grateful for everything.”

Liu held the trio of Japanese greats — Kaori Sakamoto, Mone Chiba and youngster Ami Nakai — at bay. Sakamoto won silver and Nakai won bronze.

Liu came out of retirement in 2024, punctuating her return with the 2025 World Championship. She brought that same program to Milan. Her short program to Laufey’s “Promise” landed her in third entering the free skate. Her score of 76.59 points left her 2.12 points shy of the leader, Nakai.

Liu made up the difference with a lively and clean free skate, recapturing the magic from last year’s worlds. She had the Milano Ice Skating Arena rocking to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park.”

“My family is out there. My friends are out there,” she said. “I had to put on a show for them. And when I see other people smiling, because I see them in the audience, I have to smile too, you know?”

Seemingly impervious to pressure, Liu was at her best when it mattered most. Her infectious energy was turned all the way up, her meticulous edges on point. She seemed the least nervous of any person in the building. She posted her best score of the season in the free skate of her life, her 150.20 coming just shy of her personal best (150.97) set last year. That brought her total score for the competition to 226.79.

Liu jumped into first place, past Chiba and Amber Glenn of the United States. Sakamoto, No. 1 in the world, couldn’t take down Liu’s score. That left Nakai.

Despite landing her triple axel, her score couldn’t get high enough either. When Nakai, 17, realized she won a bronze medal, she burst into tears. The first one to hug her: Alysa Liu. They jumped together in celebration.

Glenn, who faltered in the short program and needed a relative miracle for a medal, had a lights-out showing in the free skate. She let out an emphatic fist pump when she finished her bounce-back performance. Her score, 147.52, was her best of the season, putting her in good position if the top skaters had faltered. Most certainly, she pressured them.

Glenn’s impressive showing prompted Liu to break from her pre-skate routine and head for the mixed zone to give an interview about her fellow Blade Angel’s greatness.

Glenn, 26, remained in first until Chiba, the 21st of 24 skaters, took over the top spot. Glenn finished just out of medal range, in fifth, and stayed rinkside until Liu clinched the gold.

Isabeau Levito, a long shot for the podium in her Olympic debut, didn’t make much of an impact with her short program. Then, in the free skate Thursday, she opened with a rare fall on her first jump. Her 131.96 free skate score dropped her to 12th.

But America’s hopes rested on the shoulders of Liu. She entered the free skate as the only one with a realistic shot at gold. And, as has been the case since she returned, Liu proved to be America’s best for the biggest moments.

It’s a storybook ending to quite a tale. The phenom who gave it all up. Changed forever by the COVID pandemic, Liu walked away from the sport and its restrictive ways. But she returned, claiming her independence and reclaiming the sport she loves. And with her immense talent came an unbridled joy born of self-discovery. Because it’s better to have loved and lost and then have loved again.

“It’s just how my life has gone,” she said. “I learned … even when I was skating last time. It wasn’t just my retirement that taught me. Everything in general has led me to this point.”

Liu didn’t return for medals. But for personal fulfillment. A display of empowerment. Somehow, perhaps because she left, she fulfilled the prophecy from which she fled. She returned U.S. women’s figure skating to glory.

She became the first American woman to win gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002 in Salt Lake City.

Hughes was the third gold medalist from the United States in four Olympic cycles, succeeding Tara Lipinski in 1998 and Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992. In that era, America ruled the sport. The depth was historic. Nancy Kerrigan won bronze in 1992 and silver in 1994. Michelle Kwan won silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002. That’s seven medals in four Olympics. The rest of the world totaled five in the same span, with China being the only nation to win more than one, courtesy of Chen Liu’s back-to-back bronzes in 1994 and 1998.

Sasha Cohen’s silver in 2006 gave the U.S. 11 consecutive Winter Olympics with a medal in women’s figure skating. Then the drought hit — four consecutive cycles with no medal for American women.

Coincidentally, not long after the medal drought began, when Mirai Nagasu finished fourth in Vancouver in 2010, Liu’s father took her to the Oakland Ice Center in California for the first time. Then, just days shy of her 13th birthday, she became the youngest women’s skater to land a triple axel in international competition at the 2018 Asian Open Trophy in Bangkok. Five months later, she captured the attention of the sport by winning the U.S. Championships. And not at the junior level. She landed three triple axels, two in the short program, to upset the defending champion Bradie Tennell.

Liu couldn’t compete in the ensuing World Championships, junior or senior. Too young. But nine months after nationals, freshly 14 at the 2019 Junior Grand Prix, she became the first American woman to execute a quadruple jump in competition and the first woman in the world to land a quad and a triple axel. Two months later, in December of 2019, she went toe to toe with Russian prodigy Kamila Valieva at the Junior Grand Prix Final. Liu missed out on gold by fewer than three points.

By the time Liu exploded onto the scene, America had gone medal-less in three consecutive Olympics, tying the nation’s longest drought since 1936 and 1948 (World War II canceled the two Olympics in between). So the prodigy of Liu felt like the pending return of American supremacy.

She won the national title again in 2020, the youngest to win back-to-back U.S. championships. She made the 2022 Olympics at 16 despite COVID preventing her from doing her free skate at that year’s nationals. Her body of work earned her the nod.

But the return looks different than the first go-round. No longer a minuscule frame leaping all over the rink, she leans on her completeness as a figure skater.

She hasn’t regained her triple axel. She doesn’t do a quad. But the technical excellence from her youth remains. Her athleticism and experience allow DiGuglielmo to layer her programs with complexity.

Liu’s ability to leave and come back at this level lends credence to the idea that a woman skater’s peak can be later than it has previously been. Maturity isn’t the derogatory term it used to be within the sport.

The best skaters get the jumps down early, when their frames are lighter, and refine their techniques while young. As they get older, even though they are bigger, the added strength and experience can prove beneficial in a sport where expression and endurance matter significantly.

Liu combines technical expertise with personality and confidence, characteristics that become more authentic with life experience. She skates with a joy that would be hard for a 14-year-old to muster. She skates like a person who’s been through enough for her cup to runneth over with appreciation. She knows who she is, why she’s here and what she wants.

And what she wanted most was to show out on the ice. With a new dress and an old song, she let the world see her story, feel her energy. She became a legend this night because of that story.

She didn’t even put on her blade covers immediately when she exited the ice. She hopped with joy into the arms of her waiting coaches. The coaches she chose. The family she believed in.

In that moment, anyone who knows Liu understands she wasn’t thinking about a medal. But the journey. The self-expression. The joy.

All of it proved to be golden.