Alysa Liu Is the New Olympic Women’s Skating Champion
· Yahoo Sports
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Hair stylists around the world should get their dye bottles ready. Everyone is going to want the Alysa halo.
With her unusual ring ’do on full display, Alysa Liu is the new Olympic women’s skating champion. Even Liu herself could not have predicted this outcome when she retired at 16 from competitive skating, then decided to return two years later.
Read more:‘What Is There to Lose?’ Alysa Liu on Making an Olympic Comeback After Retiring at 16
Liu held off an onslaught from three strong Japanese skaters, including 2022 bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto, whose mistake in a jump combination cost her points; new Japanese talent, Ami Nakai, who landed a triple axel and the same number of triple jumps as Liu but couldn’t beat Liu’s triple lutz-triple toe loop combination; and Mone Chiba, whose triple-triple jump combination also wasn’t quite enough to place her on the podium. Sakamoto earned silver, Nakai bronze, and Chiba finished fourth.
Liu’s gold is the first for the U.S. women since Sarah Hughes, who was in the Milano Ice Skating Arena to watch the competition, became the Olympic champion in 2002. And it’s the U.S.’s first Olympic medal of any color in the women’s event since Sasha Cohen’s silver in 2006.
Liu’s win is a victory for more than powerful skating. Her comeback is a statement about autonomy and the importance of making sure women—and, in sports like figure skating, girls—are heard. In returning to competitive skating, Liu made it clear to her coaches and her family that she, and no one else, would make all the decisions about her career—how much and when she trained, even what she ate and what she wore. Teammate Amber Glenn said that Liu’s perspective on the sport is a healthy one that other skaters should emulate—one that focuses on the joy in the sport rather than the pressure and competitiveness.
“The feelings I felt out there were calm, happy and confident,” said Liu, who has said repeatedly since arriving in Milan that she relishes any chance to perform. “I wish there was another event that we could do. I want to be out there more.”
The only word to describe Liu’s skate is exuberant. While many competitors wear a forced smile throughout their routines, Liu’s happiness was genuine. “When I see other people smiling—because I see them in the audience—I have to smile too,” she said.
Skating to "MacArthur Park Suite" by Donna Summer, Liu sparkled, literally in a new golden dress, as well as figuratively, making it look easy to land seven triple jumps. She seemed unbothered by the tension of skating in the last group of six women, each one of whom were competing for a spot on the podium. Hitting her final pose, Liu added a sassy flip of her pony tail as if to announce, "Take that, world."
Liu’s U.S. teammate, Amber Glenn, earned the third-highest score of the night, and although it wasn’t quite enough to make up for her short program, it brought her from 13th to fifth place. Glenn landed another beautiful triple axel, but continued to be dogged by the triple loop jump that she popped in the short program. In the free, Glenn easily landed it as part of her combination but then put her hand down when it came as a solo jump in her routine. “This is a victory in a lot of ways, and I’m so proud of the resilience I showed,” she said. “I told myself, ‘No matter how the program was going to go, I was going to look up and tell myself, you’re at the Olympics.' And I did that.”
Sakamoto, who plans to retire after this season, was hoping to better her bronze from the 2022 Olympics with gold, and said she was “frustrated” and “disappointed” after her skate, coming off the ice in tears. “The points I lost on those mistakes were exactly the margin that cost me the gold medal,” she said. “I really wanted to skate perfectly here. Knowing that I couldn’t, and that it was the difference for the gold, was painful, and I couldn’t stop the tears.” She said her coach consoled her by reminding her that while it may be her last Olympics as an athlete, she might return as a coach with a student who finally gives her the experience of winning gold.
Perhaps the biggest potential spoiler of the night in a battle that looked to be between the U.S. and Japan, was Adeliia Petrosian, the Russian skater competing as a neutral athlete after Russia was banned from participating at the Games. Petrosian, who trains with controversial coach Eteri Tutberidze, whose student was implicated in a doping scandal at the 2022 Olympics, attempted a quadruple toe loop but fell on the jump. It’s been inconsistent during Petrosian’s practices this week in Milan, and following her skate, she was second, behind Glenn, and then third, which meant she remained in the arena since the top three skaters occupy “leaders’ chairs” near the kiss-and-cry where they receive their scores. Petrosian hardly looked up as the other skaters competed, not even as Liu took the ice and the audience roared with every skill Liu completed. When Liu’s score pushed her to fourth, she quietly left the area.
Her response, and likely her Olympic experience, could not have been more different from Liu’s. In first place after her skate, Liu never gave up the lead as Sakamoto and Nakai competed next. Even before their scores appeared, Liu jumped up and gave each a big hug.
One of Liu’s coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo, said this Olympic experience has been starkly different from Liu’s previous one in Beijing, and not only because her family and friends, as well as a full audience, are in the arena to support her, compared to the lack of spectators four years ago because of COVID. “When she was younger, she has no memories of any of the places she went to, or any of the competitions she did,” he said. “She was so not happy that she wound up compartmentalizing. She does not remember that she went to junior worlds, or that she went to the junior Grand Prix final. She doesn’t remember any of that. So last year’s tagline was, ‘Making Memories.’ We wanted to say, ‘Here we are, this is what we’re doing.'”
In Milan, Liu said she was able to have dinner with her siblings and friends over the past several nights—“like, late-night dinners,” she said, “super fun.” And while she is “grateful” for both Olympic experiences, this time, she said, “I feel like I am more gracious now because I have stuff that I want to share and I want to be here, and I think that’s the difference from last time.”
While the U.S. came into Milan with a lot of medal clamor—justified, since Team USA includes three world champions in men, women, and ice dance—American skaters, many of them first-time Olympians, struggled with adjusting to the glare and overwhelming impact of competing at the world’s biggest sporting event. Gold-medal favorite Ilia Malinin uncharacteristically skated an error-filled program devoid of his record-setting multiple quad jumps and finished eighth in the men’s event, and world champions in ice dance Madison Chock and Evan Bates earned silver behind a French team amid chatter about biased judging.
For the women, most skating fans expected at least one, if not two Americans would be on the podium. Sasha Cohen was hopeful that “we have a really good shot at one, and possibly two medals, so it’s really exciting considering it’s been 20 years since I won my medal here in Italy [in Torino].”
Instead, it was Japan with two skaters on the podium.
Japan’s growth in figure skating has been building for decades, with stars like Midori Ito, the first woman to land a triple axel in competition, as well as at the Olympics; Mao Asada, who earned silver at the 2010 Olympics after being the first female skater to land three triple axels in a single competition (short and free programs); and Yuzuru Hanyu, the first skater since Dick Button to win back to back Olympic titles, in 2014 and 2018.
As individual skaters have flourished, the skating federation has built a foundation for a well-rounded program that supports skaters in all four disciplines of women, men, pairs, and ice dance. That includes bringing in sought-after coaches and choreographers from abroad to ensure Japanese athletes are well received by judges at international competitions. The best indicators of the depth of that investment are the results from the team event at the Olympics, which feature skaters from all four disciplines. Japan earned its first medal in that event in 2022, after a contested result elevated Japan from bronze to silver. Its silver-place finish in Milan solidifies Japan’s place among competitive figure skating nations.
The top individual athletes from Japan competing in Milan have a global support team—men’s silver medalist Yuma Kagiyama is coached by Italian Olympian Carolina Kostner, who has improved on Kagiyama’s expression and presentation skills, earning him valuable points in addition to his significant technical marks. Japan’s top pairs team of Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, who won gold in Milan, train in Ontario with Bruno Marcotte, who has guided several pairs teams to the Olympic podium in his career. The pair turned to another Canadian, Marie-France Dubreuil, to choreograph their programs; Dubreuil is an Olympic ice dancer who created her own skating school in Montreal with her husband Patrice Lauzon.
Japanese media reported that while there are talented choreographers and coaches in their country, for the Olympics they aren’t quite well known enough to create the innovative and memorable programs that international judges reward. Marcotte says the Japanese skating federation is keen on identifying talented skaters in Japan and providing them with the proper coaching and guidance to become internationally recognized athletes, and is investing in supporting such global relationships.
That commitment certainly paid off for the Land of the Rising Sun in Milan, as the skating program experienced its brightest Olympics yet, winning six medals in figure skating.
But perhaps the more important legacy of this Olympics isn’t measured in medals. The American trio of Liu, Glenn, and Isabeau Levito, who finished 12th after an uncharacteristic fall, will likely have a far more lasting impact on the culture of figure skating. Specifically, the unique bond the three have formed represents an important and much-needed evolution in how athletes in the sport can and should approach the rigors of competitive skating.
“They all stand for each other; they all respect each other as teammates, as best friends,” says Levito’s coach Julia Kuznetsova. “It’s very important, because this atmosphere is very healthy and the sportsmanship is the best you can ask [for].”
They are rivals on the ice, yes, but they have shown that competitors can be compassionate too. Liu watched Glenn’s short program after she had finished competing herself, and after Glenn popped her jump and dropped to 13th place, Liu was there to give her support. “I was telling her, ‘You go, enjoy, congrats, enjoy this please, like go. You did great,’” Glenn said. “I was wanting her to enjoy herself rather than trying to comfort me. But she couldn’t care less [about herself].”
The support continued during the free program. Liu downloaded a streaming app of an Italian broadcaster in order to watch Glenn’s skate while Liu was on the bus coming to the rink. And Glenn remained by Liu’s side as Sakamoto and Nakai competed to see if Liu’s lead would hold and earn her gold. Glenn was the first to give Liu a hug and congratulate the new Olympic champion.
It wasn’t always like this in women’s figure skating. “It’s kind of weird for me to say this, but for too long there have been too many skaters who haven’t been enjoying what they are doing,” says Hughes, the 2002 gold medalist. “This group has perspective—they put the sport and the role of the sport in their lives in perspective. What is different is that these skaters are setting the culture. When I was competing, it didn’t feel like that. Skaters [now] feel like they have more authority and say over their own careers. That comes into play in the dynamic they have with each other and with the sport.”
That could be the most noteworthy legacy that the Blade Angels, as the trio named themselves, leave on the sport, no matter how long they continue skating. And that could make not just the skaters stronger but the sport healthier as well. Seeing more personality from athletes, says Cohen, is a positive trend. “I think the audience loves it. I think the fans love it because it’s not cookie cutter. People want to see what’s genuine and what’s real. I hope we see more of it.”