Alysa Liu accomplished a surprising comeback to aggressive figure skating by successful the primary Olympic women’s figure skating gold medal for the United States in 24 years on Thursday night time.
The 20-year-old from Clovis, California, who vanished from the game nearly four years ago unsure if she’d ever return, delivered a career-best lengthy program to overtake Japanese rivals Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai. Skating in a shimmering gold costume to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park Suite, Liu cleanly landed all seven of her triple jumps, together with three together, and drew a standing ovation earlier than ending with 226.79 factors general.
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about,” Liu mentioned as she left the ice. As the scores had been introduced she shook her head with realizing approval whereas she was hugged by her coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali.
Sakamoto completed with 224.90 factors over each segments to take silver, her lone errors approaching her second triple flip and failing to add the deliberate triple toe on a mixture. The 17-year-old Nakai, the youngest skater of the 29 entrants who got here in first after the brief program, made a number of errors within the second half of her program to end ninth within the free skate and slip to bronze with an general rating of 219.16.
Liu, the shock world champion a yr in the past and now a double Olympic champion after last week’s team event, turned the primary American lady to win particular person figure skating gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002. The final US lady to attain an Olympic podium was Sasha Cohen in 2006.
Japan’s Mone Chiba got here in fourth, one place forward of three-time US champion Amber Glenn, who had completed a disappointing thirteenth within the brief, however whose redemptive lengthy program ended her Olympics on a excessive notice.
“It wasn’t easy,” Glenn mentioned. “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 time belonged to Liu, who skated third-to-last with the rollicking crowd in her thrall. By the time she closed with a swish layback spin, the 12,000-seat area was a white-hot wall of sound. She then watched as Sakamoto and Nakai skated superbly, however failed to meet her mark.
“I had dinner with [my family] last night and that was unbelievable,” Liu mentioned. “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 end result was the end result of one of the crucial uncommon arcs within the sport’s historical past. Liu burst on to the scene in 2019 because the youngest ever US nationwide champion on the age of 13. She repeated the feat a yr later, then competed on the 2022 Olympics and received bronze at that yr’s worlds – earlier than abruptly retiring that very same spring, citing fatigue and burnout.
She stayed away for practically two years. But by mid-2023, she was again coaching in California, with eyes on rediscovering pleasure in her sport and probably focusing on these Winter Olympics.
Adeliia Petrosian, the three-time Russian champion entered as a person impartial athlete and a harmful flier for gold regardless of coming into Thursday in fifth place. She had hopes of a medal due to her deliberate quadruple toeloop, however clattered to the ice on the potential difference-making soar. The protege of controversial coach Eteri Tutberidze nonetheless managed a fifth-best free skate rating of 141.64 to end sixth.
“I feel a little ashamed,” Petrosian mentioned, “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 turned the eighth US lady to win figure skating’s greatest prize earlier than an viewers that included former Olympic champion Tenley Albright, who turned the primary on the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Games.
