At the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, 20-year-old UCLA student Alysa Liu scored 226.79 points in the women’s figure skating free skate to claim gold, edging Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto by under two points for silver and Ami Nakai for bronze.

Her win marks the first U.S. individual women’s gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002 and follows Liu’s team event gold earlier in the Games.

Liu’s family fled China after her father’s role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, His daughter became a world-class figure skater and refused to skate for the CCP when they tried to recruit her, becoming the Olympic gold medalist for America.