World champion Alysa Liu overcame early season boot problems and program changes to take the lead in her Grand Prix figure skating series opener.
Liu scored 74.61 points at Cup of China with a triple flip and double Axel, plus the first clean triple Lutz-triple loop combination of her career, according to Skatingscores.com.
Liu did so skating to her “Promise” short program from last season. She reverted to both her short program and free skate from 2024-25, at least for this competition.
“Last year my favorite program performance was at nationals,” she said, according to the International Skating Union. “I cried the most, I was in it the most, but this one (today) takes the cake. I’ve not cried as much after short (program) ever. It was very emotional, but it’s good. This program is really meaningful to me.”
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Liu leads by a scant six tenths over Japan’s Rinka Watanabe going into Saturday’s free skate (4:30 a.m. ET, Peacock).
Both Watanabe and two-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn, who is a further 97 hundredths behind in third, landed a triple Axel on Friday.
Glenn later erred on her triple flip-triple toe loop combination, putting a hand down and spinning out.
“I wasn’t feeling my best today,” Glenn said, according to the ISU. “But my training has been really, really great, and I’ve been working really hard, physically and mentally. So I was able to still put out a performance that was satisfactory. I know I can do a lot better, and I hope I will do that tomorrow.”
Liu, the youngest-ever U.S. champion at age 13 in 2019, retired in 2022 after placing sixth at the 2022 Olympics and third at the 2022 Worlds, tired of a sport that felt like a job.
She came back last year — after a Himalayas trek — and became the first U.S. women’s singles skater to win a world title since 2006. It was a surprise crown given she entered the event seeded eighth by best score on the season.
An American woman last earned an Olympic singles medal in 2006 as well.
Liu has never made a senior Grand Prix Series podium. The Grand Prix is figure skating’s top-level circuit and will be an early gauge of top medal prospects for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
The top six per discipline over the six-event Grand Prix regular season qualify for December’s Grand Prix Final, which will be the closest competition to an Olympic preview this fall.
Skaters’ two Grand Prix results over the regular season are combined to determine the standings for Final qualification. Two podiums are usually enough to qualify for the Final.
Madison Chock, Evan Bates lead Cup of China dance
Earlier Friday, three-time world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates topped the 1990s rhythm dance with an 84.44-point Lenny Kravitz medley, the world’s top score on the young season.
“There is always a little bit of stress and pressure,” Chock said, according to the ISU. ”We had some moments we had to work through, but we are happy with how we performed and debuted our program.”
Chock and Bates won five of their six Grand Prix starts over the last two seasons and finished first or second in their last 14 Grand Prix starts dating to 2019.
A key score to keep in mind after Saturday’s free dance is 211.02. That’s the world’s top total score this season, posted by France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron (with a fall) at last week’s Grand Prix opener.
Fellow Americans Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik were second Friday with a personal-best 80.43 points, an early boost to their hopes of making the three-couple Olympic ice dance team after January’s nationals.
Zingas and Kolesnik were fourth at the U.S. Championships in 2023 and 2025 and have a previous best Grand Prix finish of fifth. They became Olympic eligible when Kolesnik, who was born and raised in Ukraine, received American citizenship in August.
Caroline Green and Michael Parsons, the 2025 U.S. bronze medalists, sit seventh at Cup of China after he fell in their twizzle sequence.
Japan’s Shun Sato topped the men’s short with a 94.13-point program that included a quadruple Lutz and a quad toe-triple toe combination.
Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, the world silver medalist behind Ilia Malinin, was third (88.33) after under-rotating a quad Lutz.
Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava of Georgia topped the pairs’ short program (77.77).
China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong were third (72.45, with Sui’s fall on side-by-side triple toe loops) in their first competitive skate since winning the 2022 Olympic title on home ice.
Sui and Han are vying this season with Zhang Jiaxuan and Huang Yihang (fifth place, 68.96) for China’s lone 2026 Olympic pairs’ spot.
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