When Alysa Liu won gold for Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics, she celebrated in STYLE with a closing gala skate on “Stateside”. The pure joy and musicality that the 20-year-old talent performed with made the PinkPantheress bop go viral all over again, sending the Zara Larsson remix to number one on the Spotify Global Daily Chart. One thing that’s for sure, it feels amazing to watch someone who is absolutely incredible at what they do just having fun with it. Perhaps that’s why the 12-million-view performance resonated with many fans who don’t even follow figure skating normally.
Fresh off winning both team and individual gold in Milan, Liu returned to the ice with nothing left to prove. For the Milano Cortina exhibition gala, she traded competitive tension for pure pop energy. Skaters use the post-medal showcase to express their personalities without judging panels, and Liu did just that. It wasn’t all about the vibes, though. Liu’s performance featured some jaw-dropping technical moments like her closing spin at 2:13.
Because the Olympic gala awards no medals or scores, skaters are free to bend traditional rules with longer tracks and playful styling. Liu closed out the solo portion of the evening as the final individual performer before the group finale. She wore a sparkling navy dress created by designer Lisa McKinnon, with a design Liu later revealed was shaped by the silhouette of anime heroine Madoka Kaname.
The song choice was far from an afterthought. PinkPantheress has long been Liu’s favourite artist, an appreciation the athlete expressed publicly while praising her 2023 album Heaven Knows. Earlier in Olympic week, after journalist Raymond Braun showed her a supportive message from the British star, Liu confessed that “Stateside” had already been earmarked for her gala skate if she made the lineup. See another of Liu’s viral exhibition moments when she performed “Let You Break My Heart Again” by Laufey at the 2025 US National Championships Exhibition Gala.
The playful spirit of the Olympics gala carried extra weight given Liu’s recent history. After competing at the 2022 Beijing Games, she stepped away from the sport, later telling The Associated Press that she had stopped enjoying skating. Returning in 2024 on her own terms, she won a world title before ending a twenty-four-year American gold-medal drought in women’s Olympic singles. Her free skate had been set to Donna Summer, but this routine felt entirely contemporary.
The routine exploded online, with the official Team USA clip gathering more than twelve million views. Viewers flooded the comments to cheer her relaxed rhythm, with one fan remarking, “She gives pop star idol energy. This wasn’t a performance, it was a concert.” Another commenter called her “the happiest I’ve ever seen a figure skater on the ice.”
The crossover quickly reached the musicians behind the track. Zara Larsson told concertgoers in Portland that watching the routine brought her to tears, while PinkPantheress shared her appreciation across social media. The buzz extended beyond the rink too, with ABC Audio citing Billboard’s report of an eighty-eight percent streaming spike and noting that “Stateside” had reached number one on Spotify’s US chart.