BOSTON — The best showed up at TD Garden, a building where champions shine the brightest, on Friday for the women’s free skate at the 2025 figure skating world championships.
Amber Glenn, the American favorite, brought her best performance and dazzled the crowd. Three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan one-upped Glenn with an emphatic declaration of her brilliance, surging to the front of the pack, her comfort zone. It was going to take something spectacular to win this night, to beat the best women on their “A” games.
And Alysa Liu seemed born for this moment. She blew them all away. She dominated the short program and the free skate, capturing her first world championship gold medal, winning with a score of 222.97. Sakamoto took silver, five points behind with a 217.98. Japan’s Mone Chiba took bronze.
Alysa Liu SHINES in the free skate to clinch the WORLD TITLE! 🇺🇸 #WorldFigure pic.twitter.com/Ao97PdLRQ3
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) March 29, 2025
It was once prophesied how Liu would return glory to U.S. women’s figure skating.
Back in 2019, as a 13-year-old, she became the youngest woman ever to win gold in the U.S. Championships. A prodigy was born. The bubbly girl from Oakland, Calif., with a smile warm enough to soften the ice, was on her way to the top. In 2020, before the world shut down, she defended her U.S. title. At 14, she was anointed the future of American women in the sport.
But at 15, she finished fourth in the U.S. championships. At 16, in a display of poise unbecoming of her age, she finished seventh in a Beijing Winter Games dominated by the Russians. She then retired following a bronze medal at the world championships a month later.
Now, at 19, Liu — after two and a half years away from the sport — is on the verge of fulfilling that prophecy.
“I have no words. I never thought I would do such a program,” she said on NBC after the routine. “This is the best program I’ve ever done.”
Liu’s excellence in both the short program and the free skate likely etches her name in the American contingency for the Winter Olympics in just shy of 11 months. U.S. Figure Skating can take whichever three women it chooses to Milan, regardless of how they finished in these worlds. But Liu punctuated her case with a display of her maturation as a woman and a skater.
To come out of retirement, step onto the bright stage of the world championships and perform like she did — so consistently and with a command that feels effortless — repositions her as a candidate for the first American gold in 24 years.
“I’m not gonna lie,” she said on NBC. “This is an insane story.”
Glenn — whose surprising fall attempting a triple axel in the short program doomed her gold medal hopes — finished fifth.
American Isabeau Levito — who dazzled in her short program, a stunning revelation after a stress fracture in her right foot kept her from the U.S. championships in January — saw her gold medal hopes disappear in the opening minute of her free skate. She tumbled on her opening jump. The remainder of her routine was as clean as it was elegant. But the fall dropped her out of gold-medal contention, a reality she acknowledged immediately after her routine with a look of disappointment. She finished fourth.
Levito still managed a smile after rolling her eyes and throwing up her hands. The 2024 world championship silver medalist not only landed in second after her routine — posting a total score of 209.84 — she revived herself as a serious contender to represent the United States in the Winter Olympics.
This story will be updated.
(Photo of Alysa Liu after Friday’s free skate: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)