{"id":217616,"date":"2026-03-13T04:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217616\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T04:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:50:08","slug":"oakland-celebrates-the-return-of-olympic-gold-medalist-alysa-liu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217616\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland celebrates the return of Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 20-year old Oaklander took home two gold medals at Milan Cortina\u2019s Winter Olympics last month. She’s the first woman figure skater to take home the gold for the US in 24 years.<\/a> She told KALW it\u2019s nice to be back in Oakland, but\u2026.<\/p>\n

“Every time I\u2019m out someone recognizes me. So, my daily routine is a little different. I\u2019ve been trying to cover my hair, but that’s weird. I’m like, you’re only supposed by my hair, so.”<\/p>\n

Tickets for the event were free to reserve, but sold out<\/a> immediately. The rally featured performances from recent Grammy award winning artist, Kehlani, as well as current American Idol contestant,<\/a> Abayomi Lewis.<\/p>\n

“She’s such an amazing inspiration for all of us, and especially myself. I\u2019m just like, mind blown,” Lewis says.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

American Idol contestant and OSA sophomore Abayomi Lewis performs “MacArthur Park.”<\/p>\n

Lewis is a sophomore at Oakland School for the Arts. Both Liu and Kehlani attended the nearby school.<\/p>\n

“People don’t know Oakland be Hyphy. We all the Bay Area. Okay. We got the pop! We got the life, okay!” Lewis continues.<\/p>\n

Mayor Barbara Lee presented Liu with a key to the city. Former gold medal figure<\/a> skater Kristi Yamaguchi was also there to congratulate the skater.<\/p>\n

“So Alysa, thank you for representing Team USA, the East Bay, our AAPI community, and the skating community with such positivity, confidence, and grace,” says Yamaguchi.<\/p>\n

Now that Liu\u2019s gotten to share her programs on the world\u2019s biggest stage, she says she\u2019s looking forward to being back home, and preparing for next season.<\/p>\n

Jordan Karnes is the Chair for the Literary Arts Department at Oakland School for the Arts and an Academy Fellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 20-year old Oaklander took home two gold medals at Milan Cortina\u2019s Winter Olympics last month. She’s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-217616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217616","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=217616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}