Alysa Liu won gold Thursday at the 2026 Winter Olympics, completing a remarkable comeback after stepping away from the sport for more than two years.

The 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships women’s singles champion returned to the sport after more than two years in retirement following the 2022 Beijing Olympics, earning a season’s best 147.52 points in the free skate for a total of 214.91 points. With the victory, she became the first American woman to win Olympic gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.

“I’m so proud of the resilience I showed,” she said after the event, NBC News reported. “It has not been easy. I have had so many things standing in my way that I have to just work through. And so, I’m just really happy I was able to go out there and do what I love and enjoy it.”

She edged Japan’s three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto by less than two points. Japan’s Ami Nakai took bronze in her Olympic debut. American Amber Glenn rallied from 13th after the short program to finish fifth overall, earning a season-best score in the free skate. Liu’s victory ends a 24-year Olympic gold drought for U.S. women’s figure skating.

A former prodigy, Liu won her first U.S. title at 13 and became the first American woman to land a quad in competition. She finished sixth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics before retiring at 16. Two years later, she returned to training and quickly reemerged as a top contender, winning the 2025 World Championships. (RELATED: Mikaela Shiffrin Breaks 8-Year Drought, Wins Gold In Whopping Fashion)

Around the time she competed in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Liu and her father Arthur Liu were allegedly targeted in a harassment and surveillance scheme that prosecutors say operatives carried out on behalf of the Chinese government. The Justice Department charged five men with acting as agents of Beijing in an effort to stalk and intimidate Chinese dissidents living in the United States, identifying Arthur Liu — a former political refugee — in the criminal complaint.

Arthur Liu said the FBI warned him about the plot in October 2021 as his daughter prepared for the Games, but he kept the information from her to avoid distracting her from Olympic competition. Chinese officials denied the allegations and accused the United States of manufacturing claims against Beijing.

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