Thursday at the Olympics was headlined by figure skater Alysa Liu snapping a 20-year American drought and the U.S. defeating Canada for women's hockey gold.

Team USA wasn’t expected to get many medals Thursday. But the events it was in contention for were important ones. The U.S. came into Thursday still third in overall medals, still trailing Norway and Italy.

The woman once anointed as the next great American skater fulfilled that destiny eight years later by taking a circuitous route to the top of the Olympic podium at the Milan Ice Skating Arena.

Isabeau Levito wanted her final performance at the Milano Cortina Olympics “to just look beautiful.” Based on the slight grimace that crossed her face as the judges revealed her score, the 18-year-old figure skater’s showing in the free skate on Thursday was not what she had hoped for or expected.

Russian ski mountaineer Nikita Filippov became the first individual neutral athlete (AIN) of these Winter Games to win a medal on Thursday, when he secured silver in the first-ever "SkiMo" men’s sprint event at an Olympics.

Wednesday marked the 13 th consecutive day that NBCU’s Milan Cortina Winter Olympic audience has topped 20 million viewers, according to official Nielsen Big Data + Panel viewership and preliminary data from Nielsen, and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

Team USA has an opportunity to add four other medals on Day 11 at Milan Cortina in freeski Big Air and two-man bobsled, in addition to team pursuit in men's and women's speed skating. Here are the top five things to watch on Tuesday at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics: 1.

Four years after she stepped away from her sport saying she had lost her love for it, American Alysa Liu skated on Thursday night as though she had flicked the light back on in a long-darkened disco,