Alysa Liu’s comeback is golden.
Less than two years after coming out of retirement, Liu captured America’s first medal in women’s figure skating in 20 years — and it is colored gold for the first time since 2002.
She is the eighth American to win gold in women’s figure skating.
She is the eighth American to win gold in women’s figure skating.
With a flawless, high-energy performance, Liu laughed through the face of pressure and rose from third place after the short program to the top of the podium.
She jumped in front of the Japan duo of Kaiori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai.
Nakai, 17, led after the short program.
She missed a triple-triple combination but landed a triple axel and still fell to third place.
Sakamoto won the silver medal.
Liu and American teammate Amber Glenn were side-by-side high-fiving and clasping hands as they awaited Nakai’s score.
It turned out not to be that close, with Liu’s 226.79 combination score setting the pace.
Wearing a tone-setting gold costume, Liu started with a triple flip, executed her triple lutz and triple toe combination and just took off from there in a high-energy performance finished off by twisting and dancing around the ice.
She hopped up and down as she stepped off the ice to meet her coaches.
A look of possibilities flashed across her face as her free-skate score topping 150 flashed across the arena.
It was the climax of a comeback story from April 2022 retirement because of skating fatigue after winning a national championship as a teenage phenom in 2019.
By March 2024, Liu was back on the ice and en route to winning silver at the next two national championships.
Glenn finished fifth and fellow American Isabeau Levito came in 12th.
Glenn’s redemptive rebound — a near-flawless performance complete with beautiful execution on her signature axel and hurt only by touching the ice on her final jump — was rewarded with her season-best free-skate score of 147.42. It pushed her combined score to 214.91 and vaulted her into temporary possession of first place.
Glenn, 26, actually remained in first place through the next eight skaters — all of whom were ahead of her after the short program.
That group included Mount Holly, N.J.’s Isabeau Levito, who plummeted from eighth place.
Levito, 18, fell on her opening jump — a nine-point deduction on a triple flip — and her recovery into her typical elegant performance was not enough.
She did not add an unscripted triple into the performance to make up for lost points.
The teenager’s first Olympics trip had been all about fun and the idea that you cannot “evict” her from spending every night in the village.
Levito first burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old phenom national champion in 2023, captured a silver medal at the 2024 World Championships and was coming off a bronze at nationals last month.
In the end, one technical mistake in the short program — doubling a triple-loop for a seven-point deduction, which is more costly than if she had fallen instead — is what cost Glenn a medal.
Maybe even the gold because so many of the other skaters fell under pressure of chasing Glenn, who executed the bedeviled triple loop on her long-program do-over.
She finished her program pumping her fist and pinching her fingers together while mouthing “so close.”
The first to knock Glenn out of the combination lead was Japan’s Mone Chiba, who was in fourth place after the short program.