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The women’s Olympic freeskate final in Milan was more than a medal count. It was one beautiful and wonderful program after another.
Alysa Liu of the United States competes during the women’s figure skating freeskate program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Feb. 19, 2026. Francisco Seco/AP
| Milan
When Kaori Sakamoto looked back on her performance on Thursday night in the women’s figure skating competition, she saw only one thing. Had she done one more rotation on one jump, as planned, she would likely now be the 2026 Winter Olympic champion.
And that is a shame.
Not the result, necessarily. Judges will judge by these finest of margins, and rightly so.
It is a shame, rather, that Ms. Sakamoto will leave these Olympics thinking she was anything short of incandescent.
Medals are often an expression of the obvious. You score more goals than the other team or make it over the finish line faster, you win gold. But Thursday was one of those nights when it seemed a shame there had to be any medals at all.
Yes, all the medals were thoroughly deserved. But there was also some sense among those who witnessed it that maybe gold, silver, and bronze amounted to less than the recognition of what had just happened, which was beautiful and wonderful and just about as faultless as an Olympic figure skating competition can reasonably hope to be.
Who would dare say anything to Ms. Sakamoto except “thank you”? Or who could possibly watch Alysa Liu twirl and sparkle in her golden dress without cracking a smile to match her own?
And it wasn’t just the medalists, who included 17-year-old Japanese sensation Ami Nakai, who is so adorable that 100% of mothers polled said they wanted to give her a hug.
Natacha Pisarenko/APSilver medalist Kaori Sakamoto of Japan, gold medalist Alysa Liu of the United States, and bronze medalist Ami Nakai of Japan (left to right), bite their medals after competing in the women's free skate program in Milan, Italy, Feb. 19, 2026.
There was American Amber Glenn, who made a medal-ending mistake in the short program, but came back with a blockbuster free skate to finish fifth. And there was (yes, another) Japanese skater, Mone Chiba, who finished fourth and can legitimately wonder how in the name of Dorothy Hamill she did not get an invite to the podium.
Yet on this night, perhaps that disappointment was a fraction less bitter, because Ms. Liu was throwing a party, and everyone was invited. And by everyone, we mean everyone. The skaters, the spectators in the crowd, and every viewer from the San Francisco Bay Area to Siberia. It is possible that her sheer enthusiasm for everyone and everything registered on the Richter scale.
This is not by coincidence. Ms. Liu was a figure skater at the 2022 Winter Olympics, and then she wasn’t a figure skater at all. The simplest history is that she burned out and then came back on her own terms. Which is both extremely mentally healthy and also gives the vague impression of a snowboarder who wandered into the wrong venue on the way to the slopestyle competition.
At an Olympic media summit in October, she fondly recalled the time she and her teammates were engrossed in the existential question: “Would you rather be a cow or a chicken?” She also achieved her signature frenulum piercing at home with her sister that secured two arrows in front of her teeth.
She admitted out loud, to journalists, that she didn’t really know why people liked to watch figure skating. “We’re doing the same routine over and over and wearing the same thing,” she said.
Her solution: “I wish I had a new outfit every competition.”
After Thursday’s event, Ms. Liu was much more inclined to talk about her gold sequin dress (“If I fell on every jump, I would still be wearing this dress, so it’s all good”) or the upcoming gala.
“Let’s talk about that!” she said after becoming the first American to win the women’s competition since Sarah Hughes in 2002. “I have a program that I really am excited to show. It’s a really cool dress. Like, unlike any dress I have. So I’m super stoked with that.”
Perhaps we should have seen this coming with the hair. What even is that? A tiger? A skunk? A hairdresser malfunction? The internet suggests Ms. Liu was inspired by the rings of a tree, adding a new dyed layer every year. This, apparently, was a compromise solution after raccoon stripes proved impractical. (I promise I am not making this up.)
Has anyone in the history of sport ever competed with such utter irreverence for the enormity of the moment? And has that ever created a performance of such jolly abandon?
“It was unbelievable, when I was done skating, when I was skating, hearing the cheers. I felt so connected with the audience,” she said, before adding: “Oh, I want to be out there again!”
Together, the medalists made almost for a sitcom on skates. There was Ms. Sakamoto, the proper mother showing everyone how things should be done. (Her Japanese teammates actually call her “big sister.”) There was Ms. Liu, the college kid with the dyed hair and piercing out for her reckless joyride. And there was Ms. Nakai as the little sister, wide-eyed and wondering if she was really there.
“I really didn’t think of the pressure at all,” said Ms. Nakai with suitably innocent sincerity. “I just skated it, the sport that I love, and that also helped out with being able to enjoy the skating.”
For Ms. Sakamoto, the bitterness of the experience was hard to let go.
“I really wanted to skate perfectly here,” she said. “Knowing that I couldn’t, and that it was the difference for the gold, was painful. I couldn’t stop the tears.”
But on the podium, “big sister” became the official arranger of the Olympic stoat mascots, making sure her fellow medalists had their stuffed Tina mascots lined up just so. At the press conference, she glided over to Ms. Nakai to make sure her teammate had her earpiece correctly in place to hear the translator.
Elegance, it seems, is not something she leaves on the ice.
Nor is one rotation the best measure of a night when the world’s best skaters gave those who watched something more memorable than the color of a medal.
Page created on 2/22/2026 3:10:03 PM
Last edited 2/22/2026 3:16:58 PM
