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Move over Eileen Gu, there’s a new Chinese-American Winter Olympics gold medalist, California-born, Instagram queen. And this one represents red, white and blue.
Team USA’s Alysa Liu reached 5.3 million followers on Instagram on Tuesday, just a week after winning the country’s first individual Olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating in 24 years.
Liu instantly became a global sensation and a favorite of loyal Team USA fans of all backgrounds and creeds.
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Gold medalist Alysa Liu of the United States displays her medal after competing in the women’s free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stéphanie Scarbrough)
Before the Olympics started, Liu had fewer than 300,000 followers on Instagram. But her performance in the women’s final catapulted her to global superstardom in arguably the biggest story of this year’s entire Winter Games.
Meanwhile, Gu, a ski star who competes for the Chinese team despite being born and raised in the United States, won one gold and two silver medals herself. This brought her Olympic medal total to six with three golds, making her the most decorated women’s freestyle skier in the history of the sport.
However, Gu now sits well below Liu in terms of Instagram followers with just 3.7 million. Liu is on pace to potentially double that figure.
Before the Olympics started, Gu had over 2.1 million followers, so she saw an increase. But that can’t compare to the meteoric momentum of Liu, who is currently one of the most ascendant figures in all of sports.
Even Gu herself got involved in the hype around Liu. Gu commented on Liu’s post celebrating the gold medal, encouraging him.
“YESSSSSS,” Gu wrote in the comments section.
The two Chinese-American stars have been constantly compared and contrasted on social media. these Olympic Games.
Both athletes are the children of immigrants who came to the United States from China. But many fans and critics were quick to point out the contrast between Liu’s story, a story of American loyalty told by an immigrant’s child, and that of Gu, who chose to compete for Team China at the age of 15 while she still lived for a long time. in California.
Arthur Liu raised Alysa and her siblings in Oakland. Yan Gu raised Eileen just across the bay from San Francisco.
Their paths separated in 2019.
The Chinese government has launched a program to recruit foreign-born athletes, mainly of Chinese origin, to boost competitiveness, including for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and soccer, according to The China project.
Gu and Liu were the main recruitment targets.
Gu swapped his red, white and blue for red and gold. Just months after competing in her first freestyle skiing World Cup for the United States in January 2019, she competed for the first time for China in June of that year after requesting a change of country with the International Ski Federation.
The Lius remained loyal to the American team.
FBI Agent Alysa Liu, Chinese military (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images, PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Arthur would have “not been convinced” that Alysa would compete for China, according to The economist.
Liu and her family then found themselves in the crosshairs of the Chinese government ahead of the 2022 Beijing Games, amid her father’s past and her own refusal to compete for China.
Before her participation in the 2022 Beijing Games, she and her father were the alleged targets of a spy operation led by the Chinese government.
Liu called the experience “a little weird and exciting.”
“You know what I mean? It’s so… incredible. You know what I mean, it’s crazy,” Liu previously told PK Press Club Digital during a panel discussion at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
“Imagine finding that at such a young age, I mean, in a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like on a prank show?’ Like, is this world real. Like, I must be a movie character. But I mean, it felt like it made sense to me, you know, based on everything my dad did back when he was an activist.”
Both athletes then competed at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, with Gu representing China and Liu representing the United States.
Gu won two gold medals and a silver in free skiing and returned home to California as a new name known worldwide for her success.
Liu finished in sixth place in women’s singles figure skating, then took temporary early retirement, before returning to the sport in 2024.
Today, after a successful 2026, Liu has become the most popular figure in the Western world, especially among Americans, and especially among conservatives.
Many prominent conservative social media influencers have praised Liu for bringing historic gold to the United States, including Megyn Kelly, Clay Travis, Dave Portnoy and others.
Gu broke down in tears after winning gold in the women’s half-pipe final on Sunday, revealing that her grandmother had died before the competition.
That concluded an Olympics she had to compete in under immense global scrutiny in response to her decision to compete for China seven years ago.
Gu was asked if she I have the impression “a little punching bag for a certain aspect of American politics. »
“Yes,” she said, according to USA Today. “So many athletes compete for a different country… People only have a problem with me because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they I hate China. So it’s not really about what they think.
“And also, because I’m winning. Like, if I wasn’t doing well, I think they probably wouldn’t care as much, and that’s fine with me. People are entitled to their opinions.”
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