“Gold medals are usually chosen by the skates that are free and skated with wild abandon, and she is the skater capable of that.” – Tara Lipinski on Olympic champion Alysa Liu
“She showed everybody what can happen on Olympic ice when you simply love what you do.” – Scott Hamilton on Liu
“Just seeing her reaction there at the end, this was more than podiums or medals… She wanted to have an Olympic skate that she enjoyed. I don’t know if she could’ve asked for a better one.” – Lipinski on Amber Glenn
“Megan Keller, the overtime hero. The United States wins gold in Milan!” – Kenny Albert on women’s hockey final
TOMORROW: The Men’s U.S. Hockey Team Will Face Slovakia in the Semifinals (live at 3:10 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock); Brittany Bowe Looks to Earn a Medal In the Women’s Speed Skating 1500m (live at 10:30 a.m. ET on Peacock and USA Network)
STAMFORD, Conn. – February 19, 2026 – NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics continues tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and Peacock with Primetime in Milan, hosted by Mike Tirico.
Tonight’s show features Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu aiming for a spot on the podium in the women’s free skate, speed skating world record holder and two-time Milan Cortina gold medalist Jordan Stolz looking to continue his Olympic medal streak in the men’s 1500m, and coverage of the thrilling U.S.-Canada women’s gold medal hockey game.
Following are highlights from today’s live coverage of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on NBC, Peacock, USA Network, and CNBC:
FIGURE SKATING WOMEN’S FREE SKATE
Tara Lipinski on Alysa Liu entering the free skate with no pressure: “[Liu] said, ‘I don’t need a medal. I just need to be here and show people what I can do.’ What she doesn’t know is, if she does that, it probably means a medal.”
Lipinski on Liu’s ability to skate freely: “I believe gold medals are usually chosen by the skates that are free and skated with wild abandon, and she is the skater capable of that.”
Terry Gannon as Liu wins Olympic gold: “Alysa Liu is the Olympic gold medalist. The comeback is complete, and the final step is up to the top step of the Olympic podium.”
Johnny Weir on Liu’s gold medal win: “I love that Alysa is showing the entire world, and especially our skating world, that there is more than one way to win.”
Gannon on Liu delivering the first U.S. women’s gold in 24 years: “It is the first gold medal for the American women at the Olympics since Sarah Hughes in 2002. And Alysa Liu wasn’t even born yet.”
Scott Hamilton reacting to Alysa Liu’s Olympic gold with Mike Tirico: “I am so emotional. She is joy, and she loves her sport, and she loves to just be on the ice in front of people. She simply holds her entire world gently in the palm of her hand. She is so spectacular. And what she accomplished tonight, I said it was going to be epic. I had no idea it was going to be this raw and this amazing. Because she stepped on that ice free, she stepped on that ice relaxed, and she showed everybody what can happen on Olympic ice when you simply love what you do.”
Tirico: “And you know what that does. That changes her life forever.”
Hamilton: “And there is going to be a lot of hair changing in our country.”
Tirico: “That’s right. Dorothy Hamill’s haircut became popular when she won gold, right? Maybe you’ll see this look. But the joy of retiring from the sport, coming back, and you said it best, Scott, as we were sitting here watching: she showed that you can enjoy the experience of the Olympics.”
Hamilton: “Well, we talked so much about stress. We talked so much about the burden of responsibility. We talked about how difficult it is to stand on this ice. And again, Alysa Liu showed us that you can actually skate at the Olympic Games free and joyful, and just allow great things to happen.”
Andrea Joyce to Liu on her comeback: “The key word for Alysa’s comeback has been joy. How much do you think that attitude and that approach has helped you skate as well as you have here so far?”
Liu: “I’m only here because I like it. It would be a problem for me if I didn’t have joy.”
Joyce to Amber Glenn before her free skate: “You told me after the short program that you wanted one happy Olympic moment. Define that. What would that mean?”
Glenn: “I’m just going to try and have it no matter how the elements go today. I want to remember that I never even thought that I’d get here, so that in itself is an accomplishment. And doing it as my authentic self and standing for what I believe in, even though it has been a treacherous journey, I’m here and I want to enjoy that.”
Lipinski on Glenn’s triple axel: “That was one of the best triple axels I’ve ever seen from her.”
Gannon after Glenn’s performance: “What a statement made by Amber Glenn. ‘This is who I am on the ice and what I can do.’”
Lipinski on Glenn’s emotional finish: “Just seeing her reaction there at the end, this was more than podiums or medals. This was for her to fight in this free skate. She wanted to have an Olympic skate that she enjoyed. I don’t know if she could’ve asked for a better one.”
Weir on Amber Glenn’s redemption: “What a brilliant, redemptive skate for Amber Glenn. Her resiliency is something to be admired. She just fought so hard.”
Glenn to Joyce on what fueled her performance: “That six-year-old girl that never thought I’d even be here. I just told myself to go out there, do your job. I was working toward being able to have that moment in the sequence. That was my reward. It was chasing a goal.”
Lipinski on Glenn’s coming from 13th into the free skate: “Anything can happen, especially at the Olympics. If there was a strategy for her, she nailed it perfectly. It was to go as clean as possible, put some pressure on everyone else, and then see who makes mistakes.”
Lipinski on Isabeau Levito’s elegance on the ice: “She is the definition of elegance. Her skating reminds me of snow falling. Quiet, magical.”
Lipinski on Levito’s free skate and the cost of an early mistake: “Every time she takes the ice, she casts a spell over the audience. The beauty she brings to the ice is in a league of her own. She really has that elegance you think of when you think of the quintessential skater in a snow globe. But that opening mistake is going to cost her about nine points, and she never added another triple toe later in the program.”
WOMEN’S HOCKEY FINAL UNITED STATES VS. CANADA
A.J. Mleczko on Team USA responding to a one-goal deficit: “Team USA steamrolled through this tournament, and they were faced with their first taste of adversity, going down a goal early in the second period. They battled back. There was some stress, some panic, a little desperation, and it was their captain, five-time Olympian Hilary Knight, who came through with the game-tying goal with the goalie pulled. What an effort top to bottom. What a response by Team USA.”
Kenny Albert on Megan Keller’s game-winning goal in the gold medal game: “Megan Keller, the overtime hero. The United States wins gold in Milan!”
Albert on Knight’s game-tying goal in the third period: “Hilary Knight, who has announced this will be her last Olympics, keeps the dream alive.”
Angela Ruggiero on Team USA’s Olympic gold: “There are only two [prior] Olympic gold medals for Team USA ever, ’98 and 2018. There is this special bond when you win an Olympic medal as a team, not an individual sport. That bond stays for life.”
Jen Botterill on Coach John Wroblewski’s emotion after the win: “John has been right in front of me since that game-winning goal, and he has been overcome with emotion, cannot contain the tears. He spoke to us about the legacy of this team even before puck drop, and how moved he’s been by these players and their commitment to this one goal they wanted to achieve.”
Kathryn Tappen to Lee Stecklein in the first intermission of the gold medal game: “Your fourth Olympics and playing your fourth gold medal game. How do you manage the emotions and magnitude of this one?”
Stecklein on staying steady in the gold medal game: “It’s definitely a big one. I think we’re telling ourselves not too high, not too low. We’ve got to play the game in front of us, shift by shift. And we’ve got two more periods to really get ourselves going.”
Mleczko on goaltender Aerin Frankel’s tournament performance: “You think about what Frankel has done, record-setting with her shutouts. They had an incredible streak of shutout time. Obviously, a ton of help from the team as well, but those goaltenders. Aerin Frankel was tested more today than she has been, and she was solid. She stood tall for her team.”
SPEED SKATING MEN’S 1500M
Bill Spaulding following Jordan Stolz’s silver medal in the men’s 1500m: “Stolz takes silver. The upset of the Games in speed skating as Ning Zhongyan wins gold. It’s a third medal for Jordan Stolz, a silver to go with his first two golds.”
Spaulding on the shocking results: “This is a shock, and it’s not that Jordan skated it poorly, Ning Zhongyan with the race of his life and then some here to take gold in the 1500m.”
Cheek reacting to China’s Ning Zhongyan’s Olympic record performance: “Bill, I have to pick my jaw up off the floor after that race from Ning. Unreal! We’ve been pretty good at predicting what a winning time would be, we were thinking maybe 1:42.5 would be a winning time. That final 800m from Ning might’ve been the best 1500m finish I’ve ever seen.”
Cheek on China’s Zhongyan and Stolz’s race: “I think we’ll look back at this 1500m as the most perfect race Ning has ever skated in his career, at exactly the right time. Unbelievably fast, and he kept his splits so close together. The shock here was that Jordan Stolz didn’t get off the line with that first-lap speed. He’s a 500m Olympic champion, so speed usually comes naturally, but it didn’t today. He was making up ground at the end, but just wasn’t able to pull it back like he has all World Cup season.”
Spaulding on Stolz’s race having no major mistakes: “There were no big mistakes, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a little slower off the start than you’d expect. Coming into the day, we thought 1:42.5, 1:42.7, under the Olympic record, could win this thing. None of us had anyone going under 1:42.”
Cheek on what the Olympic moment means for Zhongyan: “You can see how much this means to him, how surprised he was that he was able to hold on. You hope for that day when you come into the Olympics and you have that transcendent moment, where you exceed all your own expectations from training and racing in the lead-up to these Games.”
Spaulding on Zhongyan’s redemption after disappointment in Beijing: “Ning was one of the medal favorites going into Beijing and, by his standards, disappointed. He wasn’t on the podium, finishing fifth and seventh. He talked about how hard it was to come back from that. Well, he’s come back with a vengeance here. He won two bronzes coming into this race, and now stuns the speed skating world with Olympic gold and an Olympic record ahead of the wonder kid, Jordan Stolz.”
Cheek on Joep Wennemars bouncing back after frustration in the 1000m: “This is a huge moment for him. He felt like he was robbed. I think he was robbed by that interference in the 1000m. I think he could’ve been a medal winner there. This is a huge story in the Netherlands.”
WOMEN’S CURLING: UNITED STATES VS. SWITZERLAND
Jason Knapp as Team USA advances to the semifinals: “Yellow! The United States wins! They’re on to the semifinals for just the second time in their Olympic history. What a thrilling finish!”
Knapp on Cory Thiesse’s chance to win two medals: “She can become something very rare, someone who wins two medals in the curling disciplines. She won silver in mixed doubles and now has a chance to join Oskar Eriksson of Sweden as someone who has medaled in both disciplines at a previous Olympic Games. Incredibly rare and difficult to do.”
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--MILAN CORTINA 2026 WINTER OLYMPICS—
