Alysa Liu is Golden Girl in Powerful Free Skate, First American Women Olympic Champion Since 2002

American Alysa Liu took gold with a powerful an compelling Free Skating at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games.  Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, the sentimental favorite even for non-Japanese fans,  took the silver medal while short program leader Ami Nakai held on for the bronze in her Olympic debut.

For her entire time in Milan, Liu displayed a positive, almost happy go luck, attitude with no hint of nerves.  She appeared to be enjoying every moment of her Olympic experience, and never more so in her free skate about which she said repeatedly her intent was to enjoy her performance and entertain the audience.

Her free skate was a nearly perfect performance to “Mac Arthur Park Suite” by Donna Summer, with only edge alert calls on her two triple flips.  Her performance receive the largest ovation of the night, and a seasons best score of 150.20 points and a total score of 226.79 points, a personal best.

Alysa Liu, the girl in the golden dress

“My story is more important than anything to me, and that's what I will hold dear,” Liu said. "This journey has been incredible."

Asked to describe her feelings during the performance she slowly liste off, “I was feeling calm, happy, and confident," then added, I’ve been having fun the whole time. This experience is really cool."

“I’m so grateful — I have such a great support system around me, friends who really hold me down. No matter what happens in life, I think I have a very beautiful life story, and I feel really lucky. I’m glad that now there are a lot of people watching me, so I can show them everything I’ve come up with in my head and share my stories. I want to be a storyteller.”

Sakamoto skated fourth in the last warm-up group an was followed by Sakamoto.  It was a solid skate to a medley of Edith Piaf songs, with the only error a loss of control on the landing of a triple flip that broke up a third combination an score +REP.  The loss of points on this element cost her the gold.  While Liu's energetic performance excite the audience, it was Sakamoto's elegant presentation and beautiful skating that capture the highest program component scores, and was the artistic achievement of the night.  Her performance received  147.67 points, ending with 224.90 points to finish second overall.

Kaori Sakamoto

"Four years ago in Beijing, I won what felt like a miraculous bronze medal. Now, four years later, I came here aiming for gold,” Sakamoto commented. “I'm frustrated that I couldn't win it and ended up with silver. But the fact that I can feel frustrated even though I moved up a medal color shows how much I’ve grown over these past four years. All the experiences I’ve accumulated have led to this growth, and I think that’s something I can be proud of."

The leader in the short program, Nakai, skated last knew an needed a near personal best to win. Nakai opened her program to “What a Wonderful World” with a nice triple Axel, however, subsequently the program had issues, with two combinations ending in only double toe loops, two q-calls an also an edge attention call.  She score well below her personal best with 140.45 points to place nnth in the free skate, but it was still good enough to claim the bronze meal in her first Olympic Games with 219.16 points.

Ami Nakai

"I feel very happy that I was able to land the Axel,” Nakai said. “But there were also parts where I made mistakes on jumps, so I honestly felt frustrated and wondered what was going to happen. When the scores came out, I couldn't tell where my ranking was. I was searching for it. I thought I didn't make it. When I looked next to my name, it had a three next to it. That's when I finally realized it meant a bronze medal. I was really surprised, and honestly, I even wondered if it was real."

Japan's Mone Chiba came fourth in the free skate an fourth overall with a lovely performance to “Romeo and Juliet.” It was a fairly clean performance with three q-calls spread over two jump combinations. She finished with 143.88 in the free and 217.88 total.

“Even though I gave absolutely everything I had, it still wasn’t enough,” Chiba said. “Today, in both the short and the free, being able to skate on the Olympic stage feeling this happy, or rather this grateful, and being able to perform calmly and as myself, that was truly a beautiful experience.”

American Amber Glenn gave a strong performance to “I Will Find You” and “The Return,” placing third in the free with 147.52 points, to finish the event in fifth place with 214.91 points. Her result was 4.25 points off the podium, the doubling of the loop in the short program costing her the bronze medal.

“Of course, today there were small mistakes, but I feel like I handled myself really well,” Glenn said. “There were many, many things I had to struggle with to get to where I am today in that performance. But I’m really happy with how I was able to skate. I told myself, no matter what, you’re going to look up and say, ‘I’m at the Olympics.’ And I’m really proud that I was able to do that.”

Glenn's grace and composure in dealing with personal competition experience and her encouragement of other skaters was a highlight of good sportsmanship in the figure skating competition.

Russian Adeliia Petrosian, competing as an individual athlete,  place fifth in the free and sixth overall with 214.53 points.  She fell on an attempted quad toe loop that was called under.

The third American woman, Isabeau Levito, place 13th in the free skate an 12th overall.  She fell on her opening triple flip and had q-calls on two other jump elements.  She score 131.96 points in the free and 202.80 points total.