• What Happened: Alysa Liu won individual Olympic gold in figure skating, becoming the first American woman to do so in 24 years, delivering a flawless performance to Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park."
  • Why It Matters: Before the 2022 Beijing Olympics, the FBI uncovered a Chinese government operation to stalk and intimidate Alysa and her father Arthur, a Tiananmen Square refugee, requiring 24/7 FBI security so she could compete.
  • Bottom Line: After walking away from the sport for two years, Liu came back and delivered the performance of her life on the world's biggest stage.

You cannot make this story up. Hollywood would not even try.

In 1989, Arthur Liu fled China as a political refugee after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He arrived in America with nothing but the clothes on his back and a hunger for freedom. Decades later, his daughter Alysa Liu became the face of Team USA figure skating. And the Chinese Communist Party never forgot the family that got away.

Before the 2022 Beijing Olympics, the FBI uncovered what agents described as a brazen CCP spying operation with one specific target: Alysa and her father. The Chinese government stalked them on American soil, ran an intimidation campaign, and pressured Alysa to turn her back on the country that gave her family refuge. The FBI assigned her around the clock security just so she could compete.

She competed anyway. She refused to be a pawn. She refused to be silenced.

The weight of all of it eventually led her to walk away from the sport for two years to find herself again. Anyone who has carried that kind of pressure would understand. But Alysa Liu is not anyone.

She came back.

And on the biggest stage in the world, skating to Donna Summer's "MacArthur Park" in a performance that left no doubt, Alysa Liu won Olympic gold. The first American woman to win individual gold in figure skating in 24 years.

Her father fled a regime that massacres its own people in public squares. That same regime spent years trying to destroy his daughter's career and silence her voice. Instead she stood on top of the Olympic podium with an American flag draped over her shoulders.

This is what a patriot looks like. This is what America makes possible. God bless the Liu family.