Alysa Liu joined the ranks of Bay Area skating legends on Thursday when her incredible free skate routine earned her Olympic gold at the Milan Cortina Games.
The 20-year-old Liu, who was the youngest skater ever to win the US championships, had Northern California skating fans cheering him on in Italy: Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano were watching together inside the arena as Liu ended the American figure skating gold drought of 24 years.
Vincent Zhou, a South Bay native who won gold in the team event at the 2022 Olympics, called Liu’s return to the ice “the greatest modern comeback story in the sport” in an Instagram story celebrating her gold.
That story included retiring at age 16, a journey of self-discovery and embracing a carefree attitude that helped him shake off the pressures of the international arena.
She is the fourth Bay Area skater to win individual gold at the Winter Olympics, and the seventh medal in the region overall, joining Karen Chen, who was on the 2022 US team alongside Zhou.
Here’s a look at some of the award winners who came before him:
Peggy Fleming
Fleming, who was born and raised in San Jose, became the third American woman to win Olympic gold when she finished first at the 1968 Grenoble Games. He won the world championships in 1966, 1967 and 1968 and captured the bronze medal at the 1965 world championships. He retired from competition in 1968 and took to the ice in professional touring shows. Fleming, now 77, was inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. He was a longtime sports promoter, commentating for ABC years after his Olympic victory, and helped bring the US figure skating championships to San Jose in 2012.
Charles Tickner
Tickner was raised in Lafayette and wasn’t on the national radar as a kid, like many top skaters. He didn’t start competing seriously until he was 18, and failing to make the 1976 Olympic team further fueled his progress. The following year, he won the US title, and a year later he became the world champion. At the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, coming off his fourth consecutive national championship, he claimed bronze.
Brian Boitano
Boitano, who grew up in Mountain View and attended Peterson High in Sunnyvale (now in middle school), won the men’s singles gold medal at the 1988 Games in Calgary, Alberta. He became the first Olympic champion to land a full total of six triple jumps in what was dubbed the Battle of the Brians at the Games with Canada’s Brian Orser, to take the bronze medal. Boitano, 62, won the World Championship twice, including in 1988, and won four straight US championships from 1985-88.
Debi Thomas
Thomas, who was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, but grew up in San Jose, won the world championship in 1986 and was among the favorites for the 1988 Calgary Olympics. He had a rivalry with East German Katarina Witt that was nicknamed the “Battle of the Carmens” because the two skated to the music of their long performances of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen’s opera. Witt won gold at the Calgary Games while Thomas took bronze, and Canada’s Elizabeth Manley took silver. Thomas, now 58, earned an engineering degree from Stanford in 1991, then went to medical school at Northwestern. orthopedic surgeon.
Kristi Yamaguchi
Yamaguchi was born in Fremont and, inspired in part by watching Fleming, took to skiing at an early age. Doctors told him that his skiing would help his clubfoot, a condition he had at birth. He attended Mission San Jose High School in Fremont and won the junior varsity title in 1988 with teammate Rudy Galindo. Two years later, he swept the junior and doubles titles, cementing himself as a true rising star. He won the 1991 world title in Munich, his first US title just weeks before the 1992 Games in Albertville, France. Yamaguchi, now 54, was on the US team with Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, but finished ahead of them and Japan’s Midori Ito for gold.
Yamaguchi has expressed the influence of medalists before him as he developed into a professional figure skater.
“There were times when Brian came to the rink when I was a teenager,” Yamaguchi told the news agency in 2010. “Everybody was in awe. He was a great role model and a role model for all of us. Same with Debi. It was a feeling of being lucky to be with these people right here in the Bay Area and to look up, to see how hard they train. That was great.”
Now, another generation of young Bay Area skaters has an Olympic gold medal to chase.
