Alysa Liu retired after the 2022 Beijing Games. At the Olympic Closing Ceremony, she announced her figure skating future.

The 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics became the most-watched Winter Games in the U.S. since 2014, with 23.5 million average viewers — a 96% increase from Beijing 2022.

Catch up on what’s changed in Olympic figure skating since Beijing—returning medalists, rising stars, major rule changes, and country-by-country developments.

The 21-year-old Ilia Malinin was heard on a hot mic lamenting his lack of Olympic experience and how it affected him at the 2026 Games.

According to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, NBC averaged 24 million viewers across its prime afternoon coverage (2-5 p.m. EST) and Primetime in Milan (8-11 p.m. EST and PST) through Friday. That is a 94% improvement over the 2022 Beijing Games.

There’s a familiar script that seems to play out almost every four years at the Winter Olympics. The host nation rides a wave of national pride, packed home venues, and federation funding into a medal surge that feels almost