The 2026 Winter Olympics came and went in a flash. I tuned in for as many of the performances by American competitors as possible, and despite early stumbles, there’s a lot that the American team has to be proud of. I’m not overtly patriotic, but I appreciate that the realm of international sports is one place where a feeling like national pride can still take hold, unencumbered by political or ideological caveats. Of course, the context of our geopolitics doesn’t just disappear at the Olympics, but healthy competition, sportsmanship, and raw athleticism can free us momentarily from political theater, insofar as the athletes themselves put ideology aside.
A double win from the men’s and women’s US hockey teams was enough to celebrate, especially given the history of the US-Canada rivalry, but nothing left a deeper, more lasting impression with me than Alysia Liu’s gold medal performances in women’s individual skating.
In selecting Laufey’s Promise for her short program, she selected a piece of music with a rare kind of sentimentality that you only get with a piano and string ensemble pressed to the limits of their softer range. In the opening moments, the music fell into the background enough to let the sound of her skates carving through the ice become the only audible trace of her performance. The delicate flow of a song like Promise would normally put me as a viewer on edge, as any stumble or fall sends your nerves crashing down from what seems like a higher level of suspense. But for Alysa Liu, she was wrapped up in the warm equanimity of her return to the sport, and the context of her career leading up to that moment granted her a composure that allowed the moments with the highest stakes to materialize as pure artistry and elegance. I’ll remember the first jump of her routine fondly: a triple flip that she lands with supreme effortlessness, with the arabesque extension of her back leg sweeping further and longer than any figure skating jump I think I’ve ever seen, and timed to meet the peak of a melodic arc over a half-diminished ii-chord resolution to the tonic.
Alysa Liu really is someone that America can be proud about, less for her achievements and more for her character and spirit, which we all got to see on display once she finished her final pose of each routine and let herself react naturally to the moment. She managed to carry about her a love and joy for the sport, without letting her shedding of the pressure and demand for excellence belittle the ambitions of her fellow competitors. Off the ice, she displayed a candor, ease, and willingness to not take things too seriously that we all wish we could replicate in our own competitive arenas, and her celebration with Ami Nakai at the announcement of the final results was fantastic.
That’s what I’m f**king talking about!