Boston – Alysa Liu could not believe it.
While she was sitting on the white sofa, flanked by her two coaches, and with everyone’s eyes in the TD garden firmly on her, she said – or blocked, it was impossible to hear a lot with the enthusiastic noise of the vibrating crowd around the arena – “What?” by disbelief. His free skating score had just been announced at the crowd – a 148.39 for a total score of 222.97 – and the realization struck it in an instant.
She was world champion 2025.
The 19-year-old then said audible: “What is the hell?” With a wide and expressive smile, still in shock on what she had done.
Liu’s triumph may have been the most unexpected result of a memorable weekend. In addition to overthrowing the triple world champion Kaori Sakamoto from Japan and becoming the first American woman to win the title since 2006, Liu had done it less than a year after her return to sport after a two -year retirement.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s a crazy story,” said Liu on television broadcasting a few moments later. “I don’t know how I came back to be world champion.”
Alysa Liu is golden. ✨
Relive her stellar free skateboard that has obtained the first world title for an American female skater since 2006. pic.twitter.com/z5dpg3x9po
– NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@nbcolympics) March 29, 2025
And Liu’s victory was only the start of a dominant weekend and declaration of the American contingent, which collectively proved that they were once again the best skating power in the world, after giving up this assertion in recent years. On Saturday afternoon, Madison Chock and Evan Bates won their third consecutive dance championship Ice and a few hours later, Ilia Malinin closed the event – with another high -flying performance for which he became known – to win his second consecutive title as male world champion.
He marked the first time in history that the Americans won three of the four possible world titles in a single world championship.
“I feel very happy to be one of the three winners (ahead) a home crowd in America,” said Malinin on Saturday evening. “I’m really proud of the team we have been able to set up.”
Before the end of the Malinin skate, which included a quad axel, staring at the crowd and a backflip causing the fever, the crowd of the house was standing and roared with a ovation generally heard in the building in the eliminatory series for Celtics and Bruins. It was the culmination of four days of stories for the Americans, and fans, and with less than a year until the height of sport at the 2026 Olympic Games, it was as if everyone thought it was a sign of what was to come.
“Having three world champions in an Olympic season is so exciting,” said Gracie Gold, a member of the American team in bronze 2014 and double national champion in TD Garden on Saturday. “I feel super optimistic (about the chances of Olympic medal) … It’s such an important year. I think everyone feels optimistic. Who wouldn’t be?”
The United States has not lacked superstars in figure skating over the decades. The most decorated skaters, such as Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Dorothy Hamill and Brian Botano, remain well -known names in the country’s sports landscape and the Olympic medals accumulated collectively, the world championships and various other titles of the biggest sport events.
But while the Americans continued to be very successful on the podium in ice dance, and Nathan Chen and the American team won gold medals in 2022 in Beijing, the Americans simply did not have the same consistent results at all levels. No American woman has claimed a single Olympic medal since Sasha Cohen won the money in 2006 and the drought of the gold medal dates back even more to Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Liu, a prodigious talent with an impressive range of difficult skills from an early age, seemed to be the best hope to reverse these fortunes, but she first retired in 2022 as a 16 -year -old young place after a third place at the world championships.
Perhaps largely because of the difficulties of women – once the most recognizable among all the country’s winter Olympians – the interest in sport, from viewer to participation, has decreased in recent years.
But the weekend in Boston seemed to prove that the country had turned a corner. The combination of talented American skaters, supported by partisan and closed counters, and the absence of the Russians (the country has been prohibited from competition since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022) opened the way to an astounding demonstration.
And it goes beyond those who have won the titles of the world. The three American women finished in the top five on Friday – something that had not happened before since 2001. Isabeau Levito, who won the money at the Worlds 2024, finished in fourth place. Amber Glenn, who had been among the favorites entering the competition after a previously undefeated season, went up fifth place after a short program difficult on Wednesday.
“I mean,” Go Team USA “is a bit like everything I can say,” Liu told journalists later. “I am so proud of Isabeau and Amber for organizing such great performances, such a big fight, and they were really fun to be with this week.”
Later, she added that they were all rejoiced and fed on successes with each other. (And even, in the case of Liu, take the yoga carpet from Glenn before the competition.)
“All of this pushes us to be better for each other,” she said.
Chock, 32, and Bates, 36, may be glue of the American contingent since the Olympic Games three years ago. The couple was a member of the 2022 Olympic team who won the Silver origin and was improved in gold after the team of the Russian Olympic Committee was stripped of the first prize following a doping scandal. Chock and Bates also won six world medals, including the last three world titles. And they followed in a line of strong American duos. The country has been a medium in the event in each match since 2006.
Triple world champion! 🏆 They were ready and they delivered on a soil at home! ⛸️ 🎉 #Figureskating #Worldfigure pic.twitter.com/xigfom8zmu
– isu skating figure (@isu_figure) March 29, 2025
While none of the other ice dance teams in the country made the podium, both finished in the top 10. Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko briefly held first place during the competition and finally finished in fifth. Caroline Green and Michael Parsons ended in ninth place. Bates praised the two duos after the event on Saturday, and said that there was an incredibly strong “pipeline in the United States discipline
“Our goal is to be at the top of the podium in Milan,” he said. “This (victory) doesn’t really change that.”
And after his rout at TD Garden, there may be no more assured of Olympic glory than Malinin.
The 20 -year -old is unpretentious of the ice and was spotted throughout the week while walking in the Hall at TD Arena at other events and applauding his American teammates. But it is a superstar certified on the ice – a “quadgod” as suggested by its Instagram handle, with degrees of difficulty so stratospheric that, as Simone Biles in gymnastics, it seems impossible to catch.
After his short program breathtaking Thursday, in which he took a three -point lead on the possible bronze medalist Yuma Kagiyama and more than one advantage of 15 points on the rest of the field, Malinin had received a worshiped reaction from the crowd, even before he was finished, and dazzled with his dizzying range of quad jumps and his signature “Twist”.
We will look at the short program of Ilia Malinin in rehearsal overnight. ⭐️ #Worldfigure pic.twitter.com/jkzbqhmivl
– NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@nbcolympics) March 27, 2025
Even Kagiyama could not hide his admiration.
“I feel like her skating and his artistic talent, his expressions improve from year to year,” he said by a translator. “I’m starting to think that he is invincible.”
Saturday, Malinin separated from Kagiyama and the rest with another fascinating skating and defying gravity. With practically all the jumps and skills that light up the jumbotron dashboard in green, indicating that he had succeeded and earned bonus points for execution, the figures accumulated so quickly that he looked more like a video game than an artistic business. His 208.15 free skateboard score was greater than 15 points more than anyone who and his final final score of 318.56 was 31.09 better than the second place Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazakhstan.
Ilia. Clever.
The quad God ends #Worldfigure With spectacular free skating to win the world title! pic.twitter.com/j3bovce4gd
– NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@nbcolympics) March 30, 2025
With a year to do in front of the Jeano Cortina Olympics, Malinin seems to be in a separate league, with everyone fighting for second place, and he will be almost undoubtedly among the faces of the games and perhaps THE Face of Team USA. He spoke of his desire to popularize sport more, at home and around the world, and will probably do this with each viral performance and a high level approval that he secures. He made a backflip – once again – on the ice after being presented to the crowd as world champion during the victory ceremony.
Jason Brown, the favorite of 30-year-old sentimental fans, beloved for his artistic talent and his passion, but missing some of the most difficult elements of his high-level peers, had an almost impeccable free skate to finish in eighth. Andrew Torgashev, a national finalist of 2025, experienced a more difficult outing, falling twice during a free skate subject to errors to land in 22nd place.
The pairs competition was the weakest point of Boston Americans, but even it can be considered a victory. Becauseisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov finished in sixth grade, and Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea in seventh, their combined result of 13 gives the country a chance to qualify three teams for the Olympic Games – something that has not been done since 1994.
“It would mean a lot,” Mitrofanov told NBC Sports on Thursday. “It’s bigger than us. It is something, in fact (that) we set a little goal in our heads (coming in the worlds).”
So now, the biggest question for Americans in sport is simple: can they continue and dominate the biggest scene in the world next February in Italy?
It certainly seems that the best skaters in the country, through disciplines, are able to do exactly that. But of course, the Russian participation status is not clear and there is still 313 days long and unpredictable until the Olympic team begins.
“Many things can happen in skating,” Gold told ESPN on Saturday. “The ice is slippery.”
