Oakland Native Wins Olympic Figure Skating Gold
Alysa Liu, an Oakland native, won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. The victory represents a major achievement for the Bay Area athlete on the world stage.
- This victory marks the first individual Olympic gold medal for a U.S. woman in figure skating in 24 years, since Sarah Hughes won at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. The last American woman to win any individual medal was Sasha Cohen, who took silver in 2006. - Liu’s win is the culmination of a significant comeback; she had retired from competitive skating at age 16 following the 2022 Beijing Olympics and only announced her return to the sport in March 2024. - She joins a prestigious lineage of Bay Area figure skating champions, including Kristi Yamaguchi (Fremont) and Peggy Fleming (San Jose). With Liu's victory, three of the eight American women who have ever won Olympic gold in the sport are from the Bay Area. - Early in her career, Liu established herself as a technical innovator, becoming the first American woman to land a quadruple Lutz in competition and the first woman in history to successfully land a triple Axel and a quad jump in the same program. - The path to the Olympics is a costly endeavor for elite skaters, with annual expenses for coaching, ice time, and travel estimated to be between $35,000 and $50,000, and sometimes much higher. Liu's father, a Bay Area attorney, reportedly invested between $500,000 and $1 million in her skating development. - While top Olympic medalists can earn over $1 million annually from endorsements, Liu's net worth was estimated at approximately $500,000 before the Milan Games. Her gold medal dramatically increases her marketability and potential for lucrative, long-term sponsorship deals beyond her existing partnerships with brands like Samsung and Gillette Venus.
