Alysa Liu delivered the United States its first women’s figure skating gold medal in 24 years on Thursday at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.
Liu’s near-flawless Olympic free skate left a packed crowd inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena standing and cheering as her final pose hit and the magnitude of the moment settled in.
It was a gold-medal performance for the ages and a story that includes a Capital Region-based chapter written when a then-14-year-old Liu became the first U.S. woman in competition to land a quad lutz at the 2019 Aurora Games at the then-Times Union Center, now known as MVP Arena, in Albany…