Will the ladies of Team USA’s figure skating squad be able to break a 20-year dry spell since the United States’ last Olympic gold medal in the sport? There are five American women alive who can lay claim to being an Olympic gold medalist in women’s figure skating, and their paths after such a monumental victory have taken unique turns.
The last time the United States took home Olympic gold in the sport was when then-16-year-old Sarah Hughes stunned the world by taking home gold at the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was all the way down in fourth place after the short program but came back to skate an absolutely flawless long program, vaulting her to the top spot on the podium.
She also had good fortune in that the three women ahead of her had major mistakes in their long programs, including her teammate and heavy favorite, Michelle Kwan. It was enough to open a window to Olympic victory for Sarah, who up until that time had never won the top spot during any U.S. or World Championship competition.
Sarah gave the United States a back-to-back win in the sport, after then-15-year-old Tara Lipinski pulled off an upset over Michelle during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Michelle was solidly in first place after the short program, but spunky Tara’s difficult long program featuring seven triple jumps landed her the gold medal, with Michelle settling for silver.
With the talents of Sarah, Tara and Michelle, the late ’90s and early aughts were truly the pinnacle of U.S. women dominating ladies figure skating at the Olympics. The only time a woman from Team USA’s figure skating program has medaled at any Olympics in the 20 years since Sarah’s win was when Sasha Cohen took silver in Torino, Italy’s 2006 winter games.
Ever since, the U.S. ladies have been iced out from the podium completely, with no athletes medaling in figure skating. But America’s Olympic skating program has gone through droughts before, with 16 years passing between Dorothy Hamill‘s victory at the 1976 Innsbruck, Austria, winter games before Kristi Yamaguchi took the top of the platform at Albertville, France, in 1992. Here’s hoping one of the ladies from 2022’s Team USA will take home a medal in Beijing, China!
Scroll down for photos then and now of America’s ladies figure skating gold medalists, and find out where life took them after such an achievement.