2026 US Nationals Women's FS "Liu Monsters go Gaga"

Thank you so much for the video link!

I think Isabeau should have won the free skate but I understand the impact that Amber's triple axel and power have on the judges. Alysa looked like she was skating her programme for the first time in front of an audience, which....she did.

It has potential and I think it can be a good programme but she was just going through the moves. You can see it in her facial expression, she was still thinking hard.

Bradie and Sarah are similar in that they have good qualities in their skating (Bradie's spins!!!) but no elegance. They skated great though so kudos to them, especially Bradie after everything she has been through. What a journey. She should become a motivational speaker.
 
Morning in Germany. A lot of great skating.

Isabeau - For me this was the Olympic skate. Absolutely beautiful. Sold have been in front Liu in the FS.

Alysa - like every one said it was competent but not her best

Amber - why do I still doubt her? She absolutely delivers under pressure. Once a skater flubs early in seniors it`s so difficult to turn it around. She did 2 clean programs - the couple unders notwithstanding. My Olympic goal for her is to carry the joy of the short into the long and win the thing.

There has to be an Olympic medal somewhere in here. The one thing the American ladies have over (most of) others is the ability to project and perform. No one here should be going in thinking "I can`t win".

Probably in a different cycle Bradie would be going. I hope she takes some satisfaction in what`s been accomplished.

Last comment on Starr. Look how strong the front of this free skate was. Beautiful technique. If she had not had those big illnesses what would her career have looked like. I will be sorry not to see what she could do next in singles.
 
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Fabulous competition, agree with those saying Isabeau shoulda won the free, but happy with the standings overall.

I just don't understand how Alysa's Gaga LP ended up this bad, though. All the pieces should be there for it to be amazing, so where's the sharpness and sass? (and choreo?) I don't WANT her to go back to Macarthur Park yet again, I want her to fix this programme, and it's weird to me that she hasn't.
 
Kateri said:
Fabulous competition, agree with those saying Isabeau shoulda won the free, but happy with the standings overall.

I just don't understand how Alysa's Gaga LP ended up this bad, though. All the pieces should be there for it to be amazing, so where's the sharpness and sass? (and choreo?) I don't WANT her to go back to Macarthur Park yet again, I want her to fix this programme, and it's weird to me that she hasn't.
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Her Gaga is literally the same exact layout and timing of pretty much everything jumps and spins. Someone posted a side by side on Reddit and this program and her previous free and while there are some different movements overall every element, location, and timing of those elements are exactly the same. She could be skating to any random music. Even Kwan’s Tosca and Bolero weren’t this similar. I’m wondering who actually wanted to skate to Lady Gaga because it doesn’t seem like Alysa wanted to. lol We have seen Alysa dancing off ice and she has 10000% more sass in those clips than all of this 4 minute program combined.
 
SkateFanBerlin said:
Morning in Germany. A lot of great skating.

Isabeau - For me this was the Olympic skate. Absolutely beautiful. Sold have been in front Liu in the FS.

Alysa - like every one said it was competent but not her best

Amber - why do I still doubt her? She absolutely delivers under pressure. Once a skater flubs early in seniors it`s so difficult to turn it around. She did 2 clean programs - the couple unders notwithstanding. My Olympic goal for her is to carry the joy of the short into the long and win the thing.

There has to be an Olympic medal somewhere in here. The one thing the American ladies have over (most of) others is the ability to project and perform. No one here should be going in thinking "I can`t win".

Probably in a different cycle Bradie would be going. I hope she takes some satisfaction in what`s been accomplished.

Last comment on Starr. Look how strong the front of this free skate was. Beautiful technique. If she had not had those big illnesses what would her career have looked like. I will be sorry not to see what she could do next in singles.
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I thought she was in front of Alysa in the free?
 
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SkateFanBerlin said:
Last comment on Starr. Look how strong the front of this free skate was. Beautiful technique. If she had not had those big illnesses what would her career have looked like. I will be sorry not to see what she could do next in singles.
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oh i hadn't heard of the illnesses. i remember seeing her compete on tv for the first time several years ago and thinking that she would be a front-runner in another season or two. hoping for the best for her pairs career!
 
Amber - thrilled for her. A lot of tight moments but she pushed through them. Don't like this program (would have loved an extended Like a Prayer long program instead) but she really did have a nice connection with the audience.

Alysa - I've been saying this for two seasons but I still don't understand why she didn't do a Laufey-esque long program instead. Neither M Park nor Gaga are really showing her best work. In any case, she was solid and given her short program lead over Isabeau earned a very well deserved silver.

Isabeau - hate this program but do think she was the best of the night. Fine with the overall results though since she got a big gift in the short with her combo being called clean and with pretty big GOE for a very eked out combo.

Bradie - really impressive skate. Love the new dress.

Sarah - she's really worked and committed to this program and it has grown over the season.

Sophie - 3A's looked good and glad she could keep the rest of the jumps more or less neat and tidy.
 
Yeah, if Alysa is going to keep this program, everything about it needs to be 200% more. She’s performing it in a lackadaisical way, but it needs to be sharp and energetic.

I’d like her to watch the last 2 minutes of Gaga doing Bad Romance at the Super Bowl and try to bring this energy to it. Watch how sharp the dancers are with their movements. She’s trying to do some of this exact kind of movement and it’s not coming across because of the lack of tension and energy in her body.

https://youtu.be/mjrdywp5nyE?si=OBHn7NWlLvbIAj-c

And beyond that, the program is basically just MacArthur Park to different music. If she’s going to keep Gaga, there needs to be a lot of effort spent over the next few weeks getting it to a better place. Otherwise I think she should just go back to last year’s. And I kind of think that is what will happen.

But, overall a great event and a super strong team. Each girl handled themselves well last night, and big shout out to Bradie as well. Very nice moment for her.
 
Skaterbob said:
I’m wondering who actually wanted to skate to Lady Gaga because it doesn’t seem like Alysa wanted to.
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I don't know, I got the impression from her interviews all season that she was really dedicated to the idea. I'm eating crow this morning because I predicted she wouldn't do it at Nats, and she did. :) But maybe she was more into the idea of it than the reality of it, if that makes sense. For a long time it was this big private project she was planning, and the dress had to be totally perfect, and the music cuts had to be just right, and so forth. It's one thing for it to be a big private project and another to take it out there and skate it for the first time.
 
honey said:
Yeah, if Alysa is going to keep this program, everything about it needs to be 200% more. She’s performing it in a lackadaisical way, but it needs to be sharp and energetic.

I’d like her to watch the last 2 minutes of Gaga doing Bad Romance at the Super Bowl and try to bring this energy to it. Watch how sharp the dancers are with their movements. She’s trying to do some of this exact kind of movement and it’s not coming across because of the lack of tension and energy in her body.

https://youtu.be/mjrdywp5nyE?si=OBHn7NWlLvbIAj-c

And beyond that, the program is basically just MacArthur Park to different music. If she’s going to keep Gaga, there needs to be a lot of effort spent over the next few weeks getting it to a better place. Otherwise I think she should just go back to last year’s. And I kind of think that is what will happen.

But, overall a great event and a super strong team. Each girl handled themselves well last night, and big shout out to Bradie as well. Very nice moment for her.
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Yes, someone on Alysa's team needs to make a supercut of lip sync for your life montages and make her sit down and watch it on repeat. She looks like a high school sophomore who opted to choreograph a dance number in lieu of doing a written assignment.
 
Wyliefan said:
I don't know, I got the impression from her interviews all season that she was really dedicated to the idea. I'm eating crow this morning because I predicted she wouldn't do it at Nats, and she did. :) But maybe she was more into the idea of it than the reality of it, if that makes sense. For a long time it was this big private project she was planning, and the dress had to be totally perfect, and the music cuts had to be just right, and so forth. It's one thing for it to be a big private project and another to take it out there and skate it for the first time.
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It was really flat overall - I thought there'd be cooler, more innovative remixing and music editing where'd you get little snippets and samples of hits throughout the Gaga discography (almost like Chock Bates RD from last year) but to me it was more or less Paparazzi going into Bad Romance without much of a point of view.
 
Kateri said:
Fabulous competition, agree with those saying Isabeau shoulda won the free, but happy with the standings overall.

I just don't understand how Alysa's Gaga LP ended up this bad, though. All the pieces should be there for it to be amazing, so where's the sharpness and sass? (and choreo?) I don't WANT her to go back to Macarthur Park yet again, I want her to fix this programme, and it's weird to me that she hasn't.
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Unpopular opinion, but Liu has the biggest "World Champion" boost I've ever seen :shuffle:. She lost to Bradie Tennell and Sarah Everhardt at 4CC last year, despite skating better there than she did here. She also deserved to lose to them in the free skate here. One exceptional set of performances in Boston seems to have caused the judges to shift the "Overton window" and turn a blind eye to how empty the programs are and how underrotated some of her jumps were.

Liu should've been fifth in the free skate, and Levito should have won the free and finished second overall.

The Gaga free skate is awful. All this time to come up with a new concept and choreography, and I don't think it's any better than the original. Maybe she can still fix it; I agree with you that the concept SHOULD work. But if I take a brutal look at the program, I think it's not a top five program much less a gold medal winning one. TBH if she skates like she did last night, she should be 8th-10th with fair judging.
 
skatfan said:
If it is only one woman for the US in the team event, you send Alysa, not Amber.
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I agree and if it’s two women, I’m not sure you let Amber do it.
I love Amber’s skating. I feel like her nerves are still an issue. How is she going to react to having the pressure to deliver for all the team on her back?


Alysa is unique in that she doesn’t really seem to feel the pressure as much. Put her out there with the hope of the team on her back.
 
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Honestly, I found Alysa’s unusual white striped hair dye very distracting….my eye kept getting drawn to that while she was skating. It’s risky to debut a brand new program at Nationals. She was clearly gassed and thinking through the whole performance. For me she performed it much better in practice with more sass. But still no where near second nature for her. She really needs to train it full out big time before the Olympics. But Alysa is gonna Alysa. She said in the press conference she forgot how close Nationals was and didn’t train the triple axel enough and or kind of forgot to work on it. 😳 She does not seem to be focused on winning. But she is usually so consistent, she is there when others (sweating bullets) fail. That’s her superpower.
 
I loved Levito's performance in the LP! She's always had stunning carriage and difficult composition with more skating skills on display than your average American, but she elevated everything last night. There was such an emotional sensitivity and expressing every last note while also looking completely in the moment. Incredible performance.
 
I liked her Lady Gaga program :shuffle:. On TV anyway, this program masked the cardio issues she usually has in the final minute better than the Donna Summer program.

Everyone is doing knee slides, but Alyssa's was spectacular. Her final spin seemed improved, too.
 
Since we’re focusing on the top 3, I just wanted to say how thrilled I am for Bradie to have the skate she had. After all her injuries, she couldn’t have asked for a better final nationals. Her long was lovely and in any other Olympic cycle, she’d be on that team.
 
Sarah said:
Since we’re focusing on the top 3, I just wanted to say how thrilled I am for Bradie to have the skate she had. After all her injuries, she couldn’t have asked for a better final nationals. Her long was lovely and in any other Olympic cycle, she’d be on that team.
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Agreed. What a personal victory. I'm glad she at least got fourth place (v. fifth), which is realistically the best she could hope for. She has had a long road back to this, and this fourth place in many ways is better and hopefully more rewarding than her titles. Based on Terry Gannon's comments, she had realistic expectations and was skating for all the right reasons. Best wishes to her at 4CC, possibly Worlds*, and with whatever comes next.

*I do hope she is first alternate for Worlds. I could see the USFS doing a split with Tennell first alternate for the Olympics and Everhardt first alternate for Worlds, which IMO would be unfair given 1) the much better season Bradie has had, plus 2) low likelihood of needing of an alternate for Olympics but high for Worlds.
 
peibeck said:
From my perspective in the audience, Isabeau is a lot like Sasha Cohen, beautifully musical but remote. Amber's heart-on-her-sleeve emotion blasts past the barriers onto the audience. The nearly sold out crowd reaction here clearly favored Amber and Alysa over Isabeau. 🤷‍♂️
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That's exactly why Isabeau's skating doesn't do much for me - "remote" is a perfect description.

That said, knowing a lot of folks in the Philly/Jersey skating scene, I feel for her. Her mom was born in Milan, she has family there, and the Olympics are right near where Mom came from. I get the impression she's under a LOT of pressure not to just make it to the Olympics, but to do well there. But overall, I massively prefer both Alysa's and Amber's emotional style.

And I swear: Dear Isabeau's Mom - Her skating dresses have gotten so much better, but PLEASE stop with the damn "Jackie" elbow length gloves already. They do NOTHING for your beautiful daughter and went out of style 60 plus years ago.
 
Private Citizen said:
Unpopular opinion, but Liu has the biggest "World Champion" boost I've ever seen :shuffle:. She lost to Bradie Tennell and Sarah Everhardt at 4CC last year, despite skating better there than she did here. She also deserved to lose to them in the free skate here. One exceptional set of performances in Boston seems to have caused the judges to shift the "Overton window" and turn a blind eye to how empty the programs are and how underrotated some of her jumps were.

Liu should've been fifth in the free skate, and Levito should have won the free and finished second overall.

The Gaga free skate is awful. All this time to come up with a new concept and choreography, and I don't think it's any better than the original. Maybe she can still fix it; I agree with you that the concept SHOULD work. But if I take a brutal look at the program, I think it's not a top five program much less a gold medal winning one. TBH if she skates like she did last night, she should be 8th-10th with fair judging.Do MacPark in the Olys, skate like your life depends on it, take your medal, go home, enjoy the rest of your life.
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Based on their actual performances, I would have placed Tennell ahead of Levito and Liu last night.

Liu nay well salvage the Lady Gaga program, but it looked like something from the U.S. Figure Skating Classic, not U.S. Nationals.
 
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