We love the 12 gold medals — 33 in total — our athletes are bringing home, but it’s the stories that keep us hooked on the Olympic Games, and Milan did not disappoint, ending with a crescendo on the ice where our men’s hockey team secured a 2-1 victory with a bloody, broken smile.
Before scoring the winning goal in overtime, 24-year-old Michigander Jack Hughes had his mouth damaged by a high-stick from Canadian Sam Bennett. He still had blood on his teeth during postgame interviews.
“I’m lucky I’m from the best country in the world, and we’ve got great dentists there, too. I’m lucky I’m American and they’re gonna fix me right up,” said Hughes, who won gold alongside teammate and brother Quinn.
What’s more American than pulling off a victory after a kick in the teeth? And cheers to the team’s decision to include the children of NHL star Johnny Gaudreau, who was expected to be on the team had he not been killed in a traffic accident in 2024, on the ice after the game.
USA women’s hockey also pulled out a 2-1 overtime victory against the Canadians, led by veteran captain Hilary Knight. With less than three minutes left in the game, a Knight goal forced overtime and established her as the all-time leading scorer in U.S. women’s hockey history.
Twenty-year-old Alysa Liu gave the U.S. its first women’s figure skating gold in 24 years, winning not just with technical brilliance but with a distinctly American spirit. Her grace on the ice was undeniable, but it was her youthful joy, quiet defiance and signature chunky-striped hair that made viewers around the world cheer her on.
“I don’t need a medal. I just need to be here, and I just need to be present. And I need people to see what I do next,” she said. She smiled through her entire free skate performance and ended up with both gold and visibility.
Liu once walked away from the sport entirely. Burned out and mentally exhausted, she quit at 16 after the 2022 Olympics, deleted her social media and enrolled at UCLA to live something closer to a normal teenage life. She returned about two years later for a simple reason: She loved skating.
The life of an Olympian is unknowably grueling and pressure-packed to us mere mortals, but we have immense respect for the athletes who endure and perform. We also admire the athletes who fall and get back up, including “Quad God” Ilia Malinin, the two-time figure skating world champion who blew a big lead after two falls on the ice but summoned the strength to finish.
Watching our fellow Americans achieve such heights offers a reminder that maybe we, too, are capable of something extraordinary if we’re willing to work. To celebrate them is not a political act, it is a human one.
