Olympic figure skaters like Alysa Liu are stepping off the ice and onto the runway. Tickets are now on sale for US Figure Skating x Fashion: Styling 2027, a live design gallery and red carpet event.
The one-night only experiences will take place at View Boston on August 26th, from 6 to 9 PM ET.
Inside the US Figure Skating x Fashion Experience
The evening centers on a curated exhibit of gold-winning Olympic costumes worn by Scott Hamilton, Evan Lysacek, and Carol Heiss. Guests can trace how a routine moves from mood-board sketch to finished costume, with interactive photo installations throughout.
Olympic Ice Skater Alysa Liu Leads Team USA Appearances
Olympic gold medalist and recent ESPY winner Alysa Liu will headline the night.
"I'm so excited to show how fashion is incorporated into figure skating," Liu said. Fellow athletes Isabeau Levito, Emilea Zingas, and Vadym Kolesnik will also be on hand for the evening.
Beyond the exhibit, US Figure Skating continues to spotlight the artistry behind the sport. Athletes like Amber Glenn and Madison Chock are shaping its competitive edge on the ice, and this event turns the lens on the designers who dress them.
General admission includes food, drinks, and panoramic city views. VIP passes add open-bar access, priority entry, and a chance to meet the figure skating stars.
Olympics superstar Alysa Liu won the Best Breakthrough Athlete award at the 2026 ESPYs on Wednesday night. The US figure skating star, 20, beat out a field that included Macklin Celebrini, Drake Maye, and Fernando Mendoza.
Alysa Liu's 2026 Olympics US Figure Skating Comeback
Her award caps a two-year return to competitive skating. Liu, one of the youngest skaters to land a triple Axel, competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics when she was just 16. She retired shortly after and enrolled at UCLA. After nearly two years away, she returned to the ice in 2024.
That decision paid off at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
Liu's skate to Laufey's "Promise" went viral as she used the routine to tell her story of coming back to the sport. The performance won the women's singles gold, ending a 24-year US drought as she became the first US woman to take the title since Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Alysa Liu Discusses Her 2026 ESPYs Breakthrough Win
Accepting the ESPY at Lincoln Center in New York City, Liu reflected on her path back to the Olympics.
"I've been in my sport since I was 5 years old, and I had some really rough times in it, and I took two years off," Liu said. "So, for me, it really feels like I broke through in my own way, for myself and for my sport."
Alysa Liu is officially returning to the ice, as the 2026 Olympic gold medalist plans to join the US national team at November’s Skate America Grand Prix in Everett, Washington.
Fellow Olympian Amber Glenn is also on board. However, US teammate Isabeau Levito is set to compete alongside Liu in Helsinki later that month.
Liu and Glenn could opt into lower-level lead-up events ahead of the Grand Prix. The pressure is on as the duo prepares to take on bronze medalist Ami Nakai and Worlds bronze winner Nina Pinzarrone in Washington.
Liu’s sign-on indicates a shorter break than anticipated. The move comes after she took two years off between the Beijing and Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Liu sat out March’s 2026 World Championships. There, three-time Olympic silver medalist Kaori Sakamoto retired with her fourth Worlds win.
Skaters must participate in two Grand Prix competitions to qualify for the finals in December — with Liu’s appearance at both Skate America and the Finlandia Trophy setting her up for a crowded 2026 schedule.
Women’s sport stars stepped into the spotlight, as three top Winter Olympians headline this week’s TIME100 Most Influential People.
Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu led the women’s sports field, joined by USA Hockey captain Hilary Knight and trailblazing snowboarder Chloe Kim.
Liu and Kim fall under the magazine’s ‘Icons’ category, while women’s hockey pioneer Knight lead the ‘Innovators’ section.
“Chloe shows up exactly as herself, and that authenticity resonates far beyond snowboarding,” Olympic gymnast Suni Lee wrote of Kim.
“That’s what great artists do: they make you reconsider what you’ve been carrying, and invite you to join them in being light on their feet,” comedian Bowen Yang wrote of Liu’s performance in Milan.
“She loves the sport so completely, she never stops finding new ways to be great,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai wrote of Knight’s career.
“There is no single metric that defines influence,” TIME EIC Sam Jacobs wrote. “Our selections are led by the stories that are shaping the world each year and the people who write them.”
“Some are well known to many, others only within their fields,” he continued. “We are eager to see which of the individuals in this issue will still be wielding influence more than 50 years from today.”
The Olympic trio builds on last year’s lineup, when Unrivaled co-founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart landed on the 2025 TIME100 List.
Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu credited Taylor Swift for helping her win gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics at this week's iHeartRadio Music Awards.
The 20-year-old athlete presented Swift with the Artist of the Year award and thanked the pop star for narrating a video that introduced Team USA's Blade Angels before the Milan Games in February.
"She is the GOAT of music," Liu said on stage. "She lent her voice and music by narrating a video introducing me and the other Blade Angels. I gotta say, I think that's why we won."
Swift appeared visibly moved by the comment. She covered her face with her hands and blushed as cameras captured her reaction alongside fiancé Travis Kelce.
The Olympic video featured Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabeau Levito. In it, Swift called them "three American showgirls on ice," referencing her latest album The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift praised each skater's unique story, highlighting how Liu walked away from skating at 16 after the 2022 Beijing Games, before returning on her own terms.
"Joy fuels her now," Swift said. "Every jump, a celebration."
Liu won two gold medals at the Milan Olympics. She captured the women's individual singles figure skating title, after previously helping Team USA win the team event. The victories marked the first US women's figure skating gold medal since Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Liu wore her signature "halo" bleached hair to the award show, sitting out this week's 2026 World Championships to attend the iHeartRadio Music Awards, alongside other prior obligations. Her fellow Blade Angels Glenn and Levito are currently competing in Group 4 of the women's free skate in Prague.
NBC Olympics figure skating coverage at Milano-Cortina 2026 showcased a cultural shift, as competitors displayed friendship and support rather than the icy rivalries that once defined women's figure skating.
The most visible example came from Team USA's self-proclaimed Blade Angels, as NBC showed Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito celebrating together throughout the Games. While Liu won gold, all three skaters expressed genuine affection for each other.
"I just adore these two ladies," Glenn told reporters in January. "I've seen them grow up since being little children, and to see them here as incredible women is probably one of the most wonderful experiences I've had in skating."
After topping the podium in Milan, Liu also praised her US teammates.
"I love Isabeau's wittiness. Truly, she's the funniest person I've ever met," Liu said. "And then Amber, she has so much love, and I love that."
Former Olympian Gracie Gold described the isolation women's figure skaters often experienced during her competitive years. "I still love skating, but it was how I coped with everything around it, and some parts of the culture and some people in the sport that I think need to change," she said in 2024.
26-year-old Glenn also remembers that intensity. She said younger women like Liu, 20, and Levito, 18, don't understand why NBC reporters keep calling their Olympic friendship unusual.
"They don't quite know what the atmosphere might have been like before," she explained. "Not that it was all bad, but there was definitely some intensity."
Figure Skaters Showcase Support as NBC Olympics Cameras Watch On
Japanese bronze medalist Ami Nakai exemplified this shift when she celebrated with Liu as the judges read the final scores, with NBC Olympics cameras capturing Liu and Nakai hugging and jumping up and down as Nakai's coach wiped away tears.
"I honestly didn't think that I was going to win a medal, so when I found that out I was overjoyed," Nakai later reflected via a translator. "Alysa Liu actually came up to me and said, 'Congratulations, it's amazing that you won a medal on your first Olympics.'"
"She's just so cute. She's so happy on the ice," Liu said. "I was like, 'I gotta celebrate like she did.'"
US Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu and her father Arthur Liu were among those targeted in a spying operation ordered by the Chinese government ahead of the Beijing Olympics, according to the Justice Department.
In March 2022, Arthur Liu told The Associated Press that the FBI had contacted him the previous October, warning him about a Chinese spying scheme as his daughter prepared for her debut Olympics. Arthur subsequently chose not to tell Alysa about the situation, hoping to avoid throwing the then-16-year-old off her game.
"We believed Alysa had a very good chance of making the Olympic team and truly were very scared," the elder Liu said at the time.
The Justice Department later announced charges against five men accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government, including stalking and harassing Chinese dissidents in the US. A former political refugee, Arthur immigrated to California after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Arthur Liu Took a Stand Against "Chinese Bullying"
By allowing his daughter to compete in Beijing, Arthur said his family took a stand against the Chinese government's bullying.
"This is her moment. This is her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games," Liu said at the time. "I'm not going to let them stop her from going, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure she's safe."
According to Arthur, Alysa received added protection in Beijing. She had at least two people escorting her at all times.
"They are probably just trying to intimidate us, to threaten us not to say anything, to cause trouble and say anything political or related to human rights violations in China," he continued. "I had concerns about her safety. The US government did a good job protecting her."
The USOPC supported Liu's efforts, stating that the safety and security of US athletes remained its "number one priority." Nonetheless, Alysa told her father that a stranger approached her at an Olympic cafeteria in Beijing, later following her and asking her to come back to his apartment.
"I've kind of accepted my life to be like this because of what I chose to do in 1989, to speak up against the government," Arthur said.
"I know the Chinese government will extend their long hands into any corner in the world. I'm going to continue to enjoy life and live life as I want to live. I'm not going to let this push me down, and I'm not going to let them succeed."
Alysa Liu Stages Olympic Comeback After Brief Retirement
After finishing seventh at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Alysa briefly retired from competitive skating.
"Heyyyyy so I'm here to announce that I am retiring from skating," she wrote in a since-deleted social media post. "I started skating when I was 5 so that's about 11 years on the ice and it's been an insane 11 years. A lot of good and a lot of bad but (you know) that's just how it is."
However, the younger Liu staged a remarkable comeback in 2024, rediscovering her love for the sport. She went on to win the 2025 World Championships in Boston, before capturing Olympic gold and ending a 24-year drought for US women's figure skating.
Alysa's triumphant return to the ice four years later proved her father's defiance was not in vain. Now a student-athlete at UCLA, the 20-year-old champion became the first US women's figure skater to win Olympic gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.
"I'm so intentional now," Liu said this week. "I'm so grounded. Everything I do has a reason for why I do it."
Team USA's Blade Angels made history on Thursday, as the halo-haired Alysa Liu became the first US women's figure skater to win singles gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002 — three years before Liu was even born.
After finishing third in Tuesday's short program, Liu posted a competition-high score of 150.20 on Thursday, leapfrogging Japan's silver medalist Kaori Sakamoto and bronze medalist Ami Nakai with her clean, high-energy free skate.
The medal punctuates Liu's emphatic comeback, with the US star returning to the ice in 2024 after retiring at the age of 16 following her Olympic debut in Beijing.
"I think my story is more important than anything to me, and that's what I hold dear," the 20-year-old said. "And this journey has been incredible."
Alysa Liu ultimately ended a 20-year Olympic medal drought for the US, as the last USA women's figure skater to being home hardware was 2006 Turin Games silver medalist Sasha Cohen.
Team USA saw additional triumphs off the podium, as reigning three-time US champion Amber Glenn claimed redemption following her disappointing 13th-place short program, performing a stunning free skate — complete with a flawless triple axel — to prove her resilience and secure fifth place.
"I told myself, no matter how the program was going to go, I was going to look up and tell myself, 'You're at the Olympics,' and I did that," she said. "I'm just really proud of that moment."
As the women's singles free skate hits the ice in Milan on Thursday, the Olympic fate of USA figure skating is on the line — and it rests on the shoulders of reigning world champion Alysa Liu.
Liu finished third in Tuesday's short program with a score of 76.59, slightly behind Japan's first and second place finishers Ami Nakai (78.71) and Kaori Sakamoto (77.23).
"I'm really confident in myself, and even if I mess up and fall, that's totally okay, too," Liu said following her short program finish, as the US looks to end a 20-year women's singles medal draught.
Thursday's event also offers Liu's fellow Blade Angels — eighth-place Isabeau Levito and 13th-place Amber Glenn — a chance to right the ship after mixed short program results.
"I wanted to enjoy today, and unfortunately I didn't get to," an emotional Glenn said Tuesday, after a popped triple loop ended her own medal hopes. "So hopefully I can try to find some happiness in the free skate."
"I felt very good out there," said 18-year-old Levito. "I feel very well-trained, so I was able to enjoy the moment."
How to watch Alysa Liu and Team USA in Olympic women's free skate
Liu and her fellow Blade Angels will close out the 2026 Olympic figure skating competition in the women's singles free skate at 1 PM ET on Thursday, airing live on NBC.
Alysa Liu delivered a stellar performance on Tuesday to lead Team USA in the women's figure skating short program. The reigning world champion scored a season-best 76.59 to finish third.
She trails Japan's Ami Nakai (78.71) and Kaori Sakamoto (77.23) heading into Thursday's free skate.
20-year-old Liu landed a difficult triple lutz-triple loop combination, a sequence no other athlete attempted. She set her routine to Laufey's "Promise," earning a standing ovation from the crowd in Milan.
@nbcolympics Alysa Liu was all smiles after her skate! 😀 #WinterOlympics ♬ original sound - NBC Olympics & Paralympics
"I felt super grounded, and I connected with my program on another level compared to the rest of the season," Liu said afterward. "My goal is just to do my programs and share my story."
Unfortunately, the night brought heartbreak for US teammate Amber Glenn. The three-time US champion finished 13th with 67.39 points after bailing out of a triple loop. The jump became an invalid element, resulting in no points awarded.
However, Glenn did successfully land a triple axel earlier in her routine, joining Nakai were the only two skaters to attempt the difficult 3.5-revolution jump. But the missed triple loop cost her seven to eight points, with Glenn ultimately exiting in tears.
"She's gone through so much, and she works so freaking hard," Liu said of her fellow Blade Angel. "I just want her to be happy, that's genuinely all I want."
Team USA's Isabeau Levito finished eighth in her Olympic debut with 70.85 points, with all three US skaters qualifying for Thursday's competition.
The United States is hunting its first women's figure skating medal since Sasha Cohen won silver in 2006, marking a 20-year drought. The last US women's figure skater to win gold was Sarah Hughes in 2002.