There are Olympic moments that feel monumental, and others that feel deeply personal. For Aly Raisman, a three-time Olympic champion, watching Alysa Liu capture women’s figure skating gold at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 was profoundly healing.
Less than 24 hours after Liu’s triumph on 19 February, Raisman reflected on what made the performance so powerful. “Alysa’s just really breaking down that wall and showing that when you love something, and you also love yourself, you have confidence in yourself and conviction and belief in what you’re doing, anything is possible,” she said. For Raisman, it wasn’t just the technical brilliance of Liu’s skating, but the authenticity behind it, the visible joy and self-assurance that radiated from the ice.
A veteran of the Olympic pressure cooker, Raisman twice captained U.S. teams to gold at the London 2012 Summer Olympics and the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. She won floor gold in London and later secured all-around silver in Rio, the final piece missing from her global résumé. She understands the nerves, the scrutiny, the weight of expectation.
