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USA's Alysa Liu wins Olympic women's figure skating gold / Photo: © AFP
USA's Alysa Liu wins Olympic women's figure skating gold
The USA's Alysa Liu surged from third at the start of the day to win the Olympic women's singles figure skating gold at the Milan-Cortina Games on Thursday.
World champion Liu took the title ahead of Japan's Kaori Sakamoto who took silver with 17-year-old Ami Nakai winning bronze after the free skating final at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Liu hit a career-best score in the free skate and her overall 226.79 points was also a lifetime best as she grabbed her second gold in Milan after helping the US team to the title.
The 20-year-old put the US women back on top of the Olympic women's podium in this event for the first time since Sarah Hughes took gold at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
Watched by 1956 women's champion Tenley Albright, the first American woman to win Olympic gold in the Cortina d'Ampezzo Games, Liu became the eighth US woman to take the title.
The US women had not won a medal of any colour since Turin 2006.
Sakamoto left the ice in tears knowing that she had not done enough to achieve gold in her final competition, achieving 224.90 for the silver.
The effervescent Nakai scored 219.16 to snatch bronze having led Sakamoto and Liu after the short programme.
U. Schmidt--BTZ
