Oakland is ready to celebrate Alysa Liu\u2019s gold medal win at the Winter Olympics when the figure skater returns home to the East Bay, Mayor Barbara Lee said.<\/p>\n
Liu, 20, won gold on Thursday after the women\u2019s free skate at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, skating to Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cMacArthur Park.\u201d Her win ends a 20-year medal drought for American women in figure skating, and Liu is the first American woman to bring home individual gold in 24 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t wait for her to return back to The Town so we can all celebrate her and her medals!\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. 2025 world champion, Liu had returned to skating after retiring following the 2022 Beijing Olympics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAlysa embodies everything we love about Oakland \u2014 the heart, the determination, the refusal to back down \u2014 and she has shown young people right here in our city, and across the world, what becomes possible when you commit fully to your dream,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Alysa Liu Storms to Olympic Title \u2728\u26f8\ufe0f (Olympics Figure Skating\/YouTube)<\/p>\n
The mayor said that when Liu visited her at Oakland City Hall last August, it was the figure skater\u2019s first time in the building and she was excited to be there. \u201cLittle did she know I was the one fan-girling over her,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n
Liu studied at the Oakland School of the Arts and practiced at the Oakland Ice Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soon after Liu\u2019s gold medal skate on Thursday, the Oakland School of the Arts celebrated the alumni\u2019s win. \u201c@alysaxliu just won gold for the 2026 @olympics figure skating & we couldn\u2019t be more proud of her!\u201d the school posted on social media. \u201cHow phenomenal to see her put Oakland Bay Area on the map in such a profound way \u2014 staying true to her authenticity & culture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland is ready to celebrate Alysa Liu\u2019s gold medal win at the Winter Olympics when the figure skater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,24687,332,4309,143,145,144,87808,10012,31020,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-186426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-alameda-county","9":"tag-celebrations","10":"tag-east-bay","11":"tag-mayor-barbara-lee","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-news","15":"tag-oakland-school-of-the-arts","16":"tag-olympics","17":"tag-skating","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}