Reigning world bronze medalist Mone Chiba of Japan skated next. Her free skate was very pretty and light as air, but something about it screamed fourth place, which is where she ended up. Watching her skate to Romeo + Juliet, I felt a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio looking at Claire Danes through the fish tank. She was a beautiful vision that was a little bit out of focus. Chiba\u2019s jumps seemed tight throughout, and she lost points due to some slight underrotations. There wasn\u2019t much wrong with this program, but ultimately there wasn\u2019t enough right to merit a medal.<\/p>\n
When I saw Alysa Liu <\/strong>glide onto the ice for her warmup, I knew that I didn\u2019t have to worry. Waving at the crowd and beaming, it was as if she was about to perform at the exhibition gala rather than the medal-deciding free skate. Liu, who stepped away from the sport after the 2022 Olympics and World Championships at age 16, came back two years later with a commitment to skate with joy. When an interviewer asked her whether she feels stressed at the Olympics, Liu said, \u201cOh hell no. \u2026 Competitions are where I\u2019m least stressed because people get to see what I do. That\u2019s why I do it. So I can share my work.\u201d It\u2019s a mindset so healthy I wish I could inject it into my own brain.<\/p>\n From the opening beats of \u201cMacarthur Park,\u201d Liu was inside the music, lost in a disco fantasy. It\u2019s as if she\u2019s the first skater in years to remember that the inherent quality of ice is that it slides and that she should lean into its flowy nature by relaxing fully. Her musical choice, a repeat of last season\u2019s free skate which won her the World Championship, was brilliantly crowd-pleasing in an event that too often features dirge-like classical pieces that insist on their own importance. This bouncy and joyful performance had the audience clapping along and ready to roar. Liu completed seven triple jumps, and while she didn\u2019t have a triple axel or quadruple jump like champions of Olympics past, this was a triumph that proved that figure skating is about so much more than jumping.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Skating off the ice after having commandeered the arena, the cool-as-hell Cali girl looked into the camera and said, \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m fucking talking about!\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but laugh at how different Liu is from the overly media-trained U.S. women of years past. And then the score: a season\u2019s best 150.20 that launched her into first place.<\/p>\n At that point, Liu was guaranteed a medal. I was ready to call it a day. Bronze was more than enough; the medal drought was over! And Japan\u2019s Kaori Sakamoto was still to come.<\/p>\n The <\/strong>reigning bronze medalist, Sakamoto had previously announced that she was retiring after these Games. In the short program, she looked poised to check the last item off her skating bucket list: winning Olympic gold.<\/p>\n On Thursday night, skating to an Edith Piaf medley, Sakamoto was head and shoulders above the rest of the field in artistic maturity; I particularly love her speed and edge quality. Sakamoto completed her first four jumping passes without incident, but on this night something about her performance felt a bit workman-like, just checking off boxes. She then struggled to hold on to a triple flip landing and bailed on including a triple toe loop in combination thereafter. Sakamoto was unable to add that combination back in later in the program, leaving a significant amount of points on the table. As the music transitioned to Piaf\u2019s \u201cNon, je ne regrette rien\u201d (French for \u201cno, I regret nothing\u201d), it seemed that Sakamoto might indeed leave the ice with regrets. Towards the end of the program, her skirt unfortunately got caught in one of the straps on the back of her dress, a visual symbol of everything being just a little bit off. Sakamoto\u2019s score left her 1.89 points shy of Liu\u2019s mark, a total that would ultimately be enough for silver.<\/p>\n Last to skate was Ami Nakai of Japan. Only 17 years old, the youngest figure skater in the event, a victory for her would not have been unprecedented\u2014in fact, it would have been deeply precedented. Lipinski, Hughes, Alina Zagitova, and Anna Shcherbakova all won gold as teenagers over older skaters from their own countries who were considered gold-medal favorites. At these Games, Nakai was sitting in first place after a squeaky-clean short program that featured a triple axel. Skating to a cover of \u201cWhat a Wonderful World\u201d by Lexi Walker, music a bit too treacly for my taste, Nakai opened with a bang, hitting another triple axel. She floated through the rest of the program with only minor visible errors to the naked eye, such as popping out of the second half of a triple lutz-triple toe combination, only completing a double. Underrotations on a triple flip and triple loop also proved costly as the technical panel chipped away at her score after reviewing her elements. It was a skate that went down easy, and was entirely pleasant to watch, but not something that stirs the soul enough to rack up big points on the artistic side of the ledger. When Nakai finished, she put a quizzical finger on her chin as if wondering, \u201cWill that be enough?\u201d The judges were not as kind to Nakai as they had been in the short program, placing her ninth in the free skate for a total score that was only enough for bronze.<\/p>\n When Nakai\u2019s score popped up on the screen, making it clear that Alysa Liu was our new Olympic champion, I screamed so loudly that I buried my face in a pillow for fear of upsetting the neighbors. I then removed the pillow and kept screaming because this hasn\u2019t happened in 24 years! Who knows when I\u2019ll see it again? The neighbors can deal with it!<\/p>\n Alysa Liu, Olympic champion. What took so long for an American woman to win gold again? Undoubtedly, the period of Russian dominance from 2014 to 2022 was a factor, causing skaters to feel they didn\u2019t have a chance against a seemingly endless field of teenage quad-jumping machines. But more than anything, I think the secret to this gold medal renaissance was Liu\u2019s rediscovery of the joy in skating.<\/p>\n When watching skating with friends, I always used to give them this context: What you have to understand is that all these skaters are living inside a nightmare. When you hear the door to the boards closing behind you, it can feel like you\u2019re entering the Coliseum for a battle to the death. The pressure and the stakes are that high.<\/p>\n Stephen Colbert Just Gave Brendan Carr a Free Lesson in the Streisand Effect Alysa Liu has chosen to see skating in an entirely different way. It feels crazy to say this, but Liu\u2019s philosophy reminds me of how the kids defeat Pennywise the clown at the end of It. Hear me out. Liu looked straight at the Olympic rings and said, \u201cI\u2019m not scared of you.\u201d And then, as if by magic, the Games no longer had any power over her. At the 2026 Olympics, Liu showed there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to lose, only opportunities to shine.<\/p>\n![\"MILAN,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1739a5a9-defc-49ab-9f95-e38eaf6409bf.jpeg\")
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