Alysa Liu earned the bronze medal Friday at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2022 in Montpellier, France. Making her Worlds debut, Liu is the first U.S. woman to win a Worlds medal since Ashley Wagner took silver in 2016.
Liu, who only became age eligible for the World Championships this season and was fifth after the short program with 71.91 points, earned 139.28 points in the free skate for 211.19 total points.
I’m so shocked and I’m so happy,” Liu said. “I’ve put in a lot of work. After taking off a week after the Olympics, I got back to work and I’m glad that it paid off here this week.”
Mariah Bell tallied a career-best finish of fourth place, earning 136.11 points in Friday’s free skate for 208.66 total points. Bell missed the podium by just under three points.
Karen Chen finished eighth with 192.51 total points.
Kaori Sakamoto of Japan won the competition with 236.09 points while Belgium’s Loena Hendrickx took silver with 217.70 points.
Earlier in the day, the United States had a very strong showing in the ice dance competition with two teams in podium position following the rhythm dance.
Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue rank second after earning 89.72 points in their rhythm dance while training mates Madison Chock and Evan Bates are third with 87.51 points. Both teams notched personal bests.
“We’re very thrilled with how we skated,” Chock said. “It was our best performance of this program all season so it’s nice to send this program off with our best performance.”
Hubbell and Donohue have announced that this will be the final competition of their careers.
“There’s so much emotion invested in this last competition of ours,” Hubbell said. “As much as we want to skate well for a great result, it’s also important for us to give a great performance, have fun and be present. That was the most fun performance we’ve had of that program [this season], so we couldn’t have asked for more.”
Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker are in ninth place with 76.56 points.
The United States has won at least one ice dance medal at all but two World Championships since 2005.
Gabriella Papadakos and Guillaume Cizeron are in first place with 92.73 points.
The 2022 World Championships will conclude on Saturday with the men’s free skate and the free dance.
NBC will broadcast coverage of the women's free skate at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 26, followed by a recap show at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 17. There will be an additional 12 hours of competition coverage on USA. Additionally, the full competition can be streamed live on Peacock Premium.