As a figure skating fan, there’s nothing that could have prepared me for the moment when I opened TikTok on the day after the Olympic Women’s Free Skate Event. The entire feed was flooded with photos, videos, and edits of the new Olympic champion – Alysa Liu. Her funky hair, gold costume, and radiant smile were all that I could see all over my phone. And for a moment there, I could feel my heart bursting with happiness.
I joined the figure skating community during the last Olympic event in Beijing 2022, and the whole experience was nothing short of traumatic. The narrative back then was focused mainly on the doping scandal of the fifteen-year-old skating phenomenon Kamila Valieva, and how overall the sport has turned into a hostile environment that produces one-time shining stars with a senior career that spans 3-4 years. For a moment, everyone thought that this might not be sufficient enough to draw in new long-term fans of the sport, and since live audiences have been declining almost everywhere, people believed that this was the end of the sport as we know it.
But there was a beam of hope. While everyone thought that the podium at the Beijing Olympics would be a Russian sweep, the bronze medalist turned out to be the woman that would change figure skating over the course of the next four years – Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.
She had already had a pretty long career compared to the rest of the field, being only one of the two women in the top 10 finishers in the event who had been to the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. What was so fascinating about her is that she continued to dominate the field for the next four years after Beijing, celebrating every win with her opponents and handling every loss with dignity. She had shown the world what figure skating was all about.
Going into the 2026 Olympics, she was undoubtedly the favorite to win. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans. Twenty-year-old American Alysa Liu swept the gold, as well as the rest of the world with her skating and comeback story. She had retired when she was only sixteen after her Olympic outing in China, but had decided to return on her own terms in the 2024/2025 season. Liu famously won the gold in the 2025 World Championships and figure skating fans fell in love with her “MacAarthur Park “ free skate which she decided to bring back for the Olympics, but with a brand new shimmery golden dress and with more color in her hair. And this time the entire world was watching her.
Very quickly, everyone became obsessed with her, even friends of mine who know absolutely nothing about the sport. Her charisma managed to capture the hearts of everyone. But what spoke to the general audience was her healthy mindset, and the way she prioritizes her love for skating, rather than focusing on winning at any cost.
This was exactly what figure skating needed. A young woman who had creative control over her entire sports persona who experiences pure joy whenever she steps on ice. This has managed to shift the public’s perception of the sport from the last Olympic cycle completely.
And maybe, finally, we can say that the future of figure skating is in good hands.