It has been 24 years since a U.S. woman took an Olympic gold medal in figure skating. It took a skater who walked away from the sport to end the nation's drought, as a rejuvenated Alysa Liu delivered the gold medal with a free-flowing, spirited performance on Thursday. Elsewhere on the ice, the hopes to win the Olympic hockey title looked faint for the American women for almost 58 minutes as they trailed Canada, 1–0. But captain Hilary Knight tied the game off a redirected pass, then Megan Kellar closed out the comeback with an overtime goal.
And at the speedskating rink, Jordan Stolz's bid for four gold medals ended in the 1,500-meters, settling for the silver medal. Now on to the newsletter. |
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Alysa Liu, U.S. hockey capture Olympic gold |
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By Michael Rosenberg Winning an Olympic gold medal in figure skating is easy. All you have to do is win a national championship at age 13, burn out and retire at 16, come back, dismiss your scores like they're spam e-mails, return to the Olympics, nail your short program and then console your friend who didn't, relax with late-night dinners with your siblings and friends … and then, with the world watching, put on a gold dress that could light a cave and take the words "free skate" as literally as anybody ever has. Alysa Liu is the eighth American woman to win the individual gold medal and the first to do so unintentionally. If she leaned into joy any harder, the j would touch the y. "I don't need this," Liu said. "What I needed was the stage, and I got it. So I was all good no matter what. If I fell on every jump, I would still be wearing this dress." The closer Liu got to winning, the less she seemed to care about it. After placing third in the short program, she seemed more concerned about her friend Amber Glenn, who had bailed on a jump and finished 13th. |
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Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated |
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By Pat Forde Leonard da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting is housed in this city, at the former Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. That's a few kilometers from the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, where Thursday night the United States and Canada's women's teams produced a masterpiece of an Olympic gold medal game. Applying bold brush strokes with her hockey stick, American Megan Keller ended it with "The Last Shot." Keller's sudden-death, golden goal was a work of art, an extemporaneous display of skill and daring that was the only fitting way to end this overtime epic. Taking a brilliant, half-rink outlet pass from Taylor Heise, Keller began attacking at the Canadian blue line from the left wing—in the three-on-three overtime format, there was plenty of open ice in which to operate. She maximized the chance with a fancy maneuver young hockey players will be trying to mimic for years to come. |
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Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto/Getty Images |
By Michael Rosenberg
The seemingly unshakeable Jordan Stolz finally got knocked off balance—first by the clock, and then by reality. Stolz has approached this whole Olympics with the deliberate intensity of a hired assassin. He came here to win at least three gold medals but was careful not to predict it. He spoke respectfully of other skaters but did not overdo it. Then he looked up on Thursday afternoon and saw 1:41.98. China's Ning Zhongyan had set an Olympic record at 1,500 meters. Stolz knew Ning was a threat. But he did not expect a sub-1:42 time from anyone. "I thought I could probably beat it," Stolz said later. Stolz does not seem like the kind of athlete who thinks about what he can probably do. Yet here he was. Stolz is the best in the world at finishing races. His modus operandi is to start just well enough, stay right around the first-place pace for most of the race and then use his unparalleled closing burst to win. When Stolz saw 1:41.98, he knew that this time, starting just well enough would not be good enough. |
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images |
By Michael Rosenberg
Casey Wasserman needs to go, and he needs to go now. U.S. Olympic officials should pressure the LA28 board to remove Wasserman as chair of the Los Angeles 2028 organizing committee. Wasserman's exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, are a storm cloud that will hover over the L.A. Olympics for as long as he is in charge. To explain why Wasserman needs to go, we turn to … Casey Wasserman. Last week, Wasserman told employees in an email at his eponymous agency that he was selling the company. His reasoning: "Our clients expect—and deserve—world-class representation. And that's exactly what they get because of all of you. At this moment, I believe that I have become a distraction to those efforts." |
United States- 🥇9 🥈12 🥉6 (27) |
Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated |
Megan Keller (5) scored the game-winning goal four minutes into overtime to win gold for Team USA. |
- 5:55 a.m. ET: Women's freestyle skiing cross final (USA Network) MEDAL 🏅
- 8:05 a.m. ET: Women's curling semifinals: U.S. vs. Switzerland (USA Network at 9 a.m. ET)
- 8:15 a.m. ET: Men's biathlon 15-km mass start (USA Network; NBC at 12:15 p.m. ET)
- 10:40 a.m. ET: Men's hockey semifinals: Canada vs. Finland (USA Network at 11:50 a.m. ET)
- 11 a.m. ET: Women's speedskating 1500-meter final (USA Network; NBC at 1 p.m. ET) MEDAL 🏅
- 12 p.m. ET: Two-woman bobsled (Run 1; NBC)
- 1:30 p.m. ET: Men's freestyle skiing freeski halfpipe final (NBC) MEDAL 🏅
- 2:15 p.m. ET: Women's 1500-meter and men's relay short-track speedskating finals (USA Network) MEDAL 🏅
- 3:10 p.m. ET: Men's hockey semifinals: U.S. vs. Slovakia (NBC)
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