70 years ago, Tenley Albright won women’s figure skating gold for the United States of America in Cortina, Italy.
It was the first for American women in Winter Olympics history.
After over half a century, Team USA saw a woman reach the top of the figure skating mountain at the Olympics.
On Thursday, 90-year-old Albright was back where she won that gold medal, watching as 20-year-old Alysa Liu joined her in the pantheon as American women to win individual figure skating gold at the pinnacle of the sport.
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Albright was all smiles at the free skate finale, revealing an old Team USA sweater from when she won her gold medal all those years ago in Italy.
“I wasn’t able to wear [the sweater] because I had injured my ankle and wasn’t able to parade in the opening ceremony,” she said.
After winning her Olympic gold, Albright graduated from Harvard and became a surgeon. Later, she served as the chief physician for Team USA before ultimately becoming vice president.
In an interview with AP News before the Olympics began, she recalled her time competing in the city that, for the past two weeks, has been home to thousands in the Olympic Village.
“It was so beautiful, up there in the mountains,” she said. “I remember when they started humming my music, and that really lifted me, and I took off my double axel in the sun and landed in the shade, and it was the most unbelievable thing.”
Albright and Liu make up a group of eight women who have won individual figure skating gold at the Olympics. While Albright was the first and Liu is the most recent, they almost certainly won’t be the last, following the explosion of popularity this year’s competition has seen across the United States.
In 70 years, Liu might be in a similar position to Albright, back in Europe at another Olympics, watching the next American figure skating star have their moment in that beautiful Italian sun.
