Japan's Ami Nakai leads Olympic skating; American Alysa Liu in 3rd

Scott M. Reid, The Orange County Register on Feb 17, 2026

Published in Olympics

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MILAN — Only a few months ago, Ami Nakai, by her own admission, didn’t have skating in the 2026 Olympic Games on her radar.

Yet there was the Japanese 17-year-old leading a pair of world champions in the Milano Cortina Olympic Games women’s figure skating competition going into Tuesday’s free skate.

Nakai became only the fourth woman in Olympic history to successfully land a triple axel, the sport’s hardest jump, at the Games, a leap that propelled her to a short program winning 78.61 score Tuesday.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Nakai said.

Kaori Sakamoto, Japan’s three-time world champion, is second at 77.23. A third Japanese skater, Mone Chiba, is fourth at 74.00.

Squeezed between Sakamoto and Chiba at 76.59 points is Team USA’s Alysa Liu, the reigning world champion and the only skater standing in the way of a Japanese sweep of the Olympic medals.

“Whether I beat them or not is not my goal,” Liu said of the Japanese. “My goal is just to do my programs and share my story and I don’t need to be over or under anyone to do that.”

It was a rough night for Liu’s U.S. teammates. Isabeu Levito, the 2024 world silver medalist, had some mistakes in a step sequence and sits eighth at 70.84.

If Tuesday was a dream for Nakai, it was a nightmare for Amber Glenn, the three-time U.S. champion. The Texan appeared headed into the lead midway through her program to Madonna’s “Like A Prayer,” opening with a triple axel and then coming right back only moments later with triple flip, triple toe-loop combination. But she doubled a triple loop, receiving no points for the element and finishing with 67.39 points and in 13th place and out of medal contention.

Glenn did not speak to reporters after the competition.

Sofia Samodelkina of Kazakhstan is 12th with a score of 68.47. Samodelkina, who turns 19 on Wednesday, was born in Moscow and was fifth in the 2022 Russian Championships before switching her allegiance to her mother’s native Kazakhstan in May 2024. Last summer, she relocated to Orange County to train with Rafael Arutyunyan at Great Park Ice.

Sakamoto and Liu were both nearly flawless.

The short program marked a return to the Olympics for Liu, the 20-year-old Bay Area native, that few in the sport could have envisioned 18 months ago. The youngest U.S. women’s champion in history at 13, then defending her national title a year later, Liu stunned the sport by retiring at 16 after finishing sixth at the 2022 Olympic Games. Then, in a move nearly as shocking, she returned to skating in the summer of 2024 and went on less than a year later to win the world title, the first for a U.S. woman in 19 years.

Liu, skating first in the final group of six skaters, opened with a triple flip, and then after a double axel landed a triple lutz, triple loop combination.

“I couldn’t be happier with the way I skated,” Liu said.

Sakamoto, competing in her third and final Olympic Games, skated fittingly to Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli’s “Time To Say Goodbye,” opening with a triple lutz and later landing a triple flip, triple toe combination.

The difference between Nakai and Liu and Sakamoto is the teenager’s ability to land the triple axel.

Nakai switched from rhythmic gymnastics to figure skating when she was 5 after watching Mao Asada, the three-time World champion and the first woman to consistently land the triple axel.

When Nakai was still a young girl, she met Asada, who was practicing for an ice show at the same Niigata ice rink where Nakai trained. Later, Asada gave the girl a private lesson.

Nakai was landing triple axels by the time she was in fifth grade.

But wasn’t until this Olympic season that Nakai emerged as a contender to make Japan’s Olympic team. She won the Grand Prix de France earlier this season and then took the silver medal at the Grand Prix Final, finishing ahead of Sakamoto and behind only Liu.

On Tuesday, skating more than an hour earlier than the other medal contenders, Nakai landed a triple axel early in her program, setting a standard that Sakamoto and Liu couldn’t quite match.

“I just tried to stay in my skate,” Nakai said, “and have a good time for the rest of the skate.”

She will take a similar strategy into Thursday’s free skate.

“I want to make sure I land the triple axel,” Nakai said “and then enjoy the performance until the very end of it.”

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