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Nearly 5,000 people gathered in Oakland on Thursday afternoon to celebrate local hero Alysa Liu – a fitting homecoming for the two-time Olympic gold medalist who joyously shouted out the Bay Area city after her short program in Milan less than a month ago.

Scores of people arrived early on Thursday to snag a seat close to the stage in front of city hall at the free but ticketed event, which sold out quickly. One group of women donned striped wigs in tribute to Liu’s famously dyed hair, while others held handmade signs showing pride for the figure skating icon.

Liu appeared on stage as local luminaries feted the “home town hero”.

“Every time she stepped on the ice, she carried the spirit of Oakland with her,” mayor Barbara Lee said, presenting Liu a key to the city.

“To all of us in Oakland, we know that she is our hero, but what I will tell you, brothers and sisters and siblings, she is an American hero,” said the representative Lateefah Simon.

“What’s up, Oakland!” Liu said to cheers from the crowd. “This is for y’all,” she added, holding the gold medals around her neck.

Liu’s family moved around the Bay Area a lot, but she says she represents Oakland. She briefly attended Oakland School for the Arts and trained at the Oakland Ice Center, both walking distance from city hall.

Liu was the youngest US women’s figure-skating champion at 13 years old, placed sixth at the Beijing Olympics and then quit figure skating when she was 16. Years later, she decided to step back on the ice and won the 2025 world championships, setting her up for her Olympic victories at 20 years old. She is the first US woman to win the individual figure-skating gold medal in 24 years.

“The two years I spent away helped me as a person,” she told a group of journalists on Thursday morning. “I got to go to school, hang out with my friends, I got to take my siblings to and from school, run errands … I feel like had I not quit and stepped back, I would not have experienced all that. I’m really glad that I listened to myself.”

“She relishes in the journey, every day. Whether it’s a good day, whether it’s a not-so-good-day,” Phillip DiGuglielmo, one of her coaches, said.

Since winning a medal for the team and individual events in Milan, Liu has charmed the media and public with her free spirit, her groundedness and her overall perspective on life.

She said dealing with the attention has been an adjustment. She tries to stay offline and clears her social media feed of posts about herself by pressing “not interested”. “My feed is not of me, so I feel normal,” she said with a laugh.

Liu recently bowed out of the upcoming figure skating world championships, due to overlapping commitments and a lack of time for training. “There’s always next season,” she said, adding she’s “satisfied” after the Olympics.

At Liu’s wishes, organizers opted against a parade and instead showcased a slew of local artists. Fremont high school’s drumline performed, as did a lion dance troupe from US Shaolin Kung Fu. Abayomi Lewis, an Oakland School for the Arts student and American Idol contestant, sang MacArthur Park, the same song Liu skated to in her Olympic free skate. When Turfinc, a group celebrating Oakland’s street dance culture, performed, Liu even joined them on stage. Despite the unseasonably hot day in Oakland, the crowd cheered and danced along with the performers.

Figure-skating legend Kristi Yamaguchi, a native of nearby Fremont who won gold at the 1992 Olympics, spoke at the celebration, as did Andre Ward, the 2004 Olympic gold medal boxer who grew up in Oakland. Other Bay Area sports legends, including Warriors coach Steve Kerr, NBA star Stephen Curry and figure skater Brian Boitano recorded video messages for the event, while the Valkyries, Oakland Roots and Oakland Ballers presented Liu with custom jerseys, a jacket and her own championship ring.

The showcase was topped off with a performance by Grammy-award-winning R&B singer Kehlani, who also attended Oakland School for the Arts.

“It’s been truly amazing to see how she’s put Oakland onto a global stage,” said ClayDough, an attendee and musician who graduated from Oakland School for the Arts. “We get a lot of negative stuff in the news. Some of that is valid, but this makes me really happy to see us shown positively.”

OAKLAND, Calif. — For one muralist, it was nearly instant. For another group, it took a few days to realize Alysa Liu’s golden moment in the Olympic spotlight was worthy of enshrinement.

The beginnings of a Los Angeles-area mural by artist Gustavo Zermeño Jr., depicting a now-iconic image of Liu biting her individual figure skating gold medal at the Milan Cortina Games, went viral Tuesday. The 20-year-old Liu has ties to the area as a UCLA student. However, the place she calls home, where she trains and has been hailed as a “hero,” is roughly 400 miles north.

The Illuminaries, a local mural and design collective in Oakland, started their own Liu project Friday in the city’s Temescal neighborhood after being flooded with requests.

“Once she did that pose, the ‘thizz face’ pose, so many people hit us up and sent us the pictures,” Illuminaries member Steve Ha said.

The group was previously known for its piece depicting Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry doing his “thizz face” in 2015. Still, the Illuminaries initially weren’t sure they wanted to hop on the Liu “bandwagon,” Ha said. “To be honest, we didn’t even know who she was. But after reading more about her story, and seeing she’s such an inspiration, it was like, ‘How could we not?’”

Zermeño continued to add elements to his mural in Los Angeles on Friday. His artwork is often based on athletes who inspire him. And once he heard Liu’s story, he was motivated to paint.

“I want to do something special not just for her, but for the community here,” Zermeño said.

Ha and his team saw the L.A. mural and were goaded on by Bay Area fans’ messages and social media tags. So they decided to put their own spin on it, stylizing it in the “Illuminaries way” — and funding the project out of their own pockets.

“We wanted to show the Bay has style,” Ha said. “We’re gonna do it, but we’re gonna do it with style.”

Zermeño said he doesn’t mind if other Liu murals pop up. The same thing happened in the wake of Kobe Bryant’s death, when he and artists across Southern California were inspired to honor the Los Angeles Lakers star. Zermeño said that more murals inspire artists to step outside their comfort zone.

“It’s a similar situation where someone has wanted to paint a mural, and now they have the inspiration to do it,” Zermeño said.

Liu, who initially retired from figure skating four years ago only to return two years later, has become a fan-favorite for doing things her way. Her performances in Milan bubbled with joy as she became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in singles figure skating in 20 years.

“That’s what I’m f—ing talking about,” she said to the camera after her gold-clinching performance.

At a watch party at Liu’s home rink on Feb. 19, former pro skater Carrie Maultsby-Lute said she felt like Liu perfectly represents the city, and “could only have come out of Oakland — to have just such unapologetic power and joy.”

“I’m just glad that I could bring Oakland to Milan,” Liu said after her win.

Liu’s eagerness to represent Oakland — which is planning a “community-wide celebration” of Liu — stands in contrast to the professional sports organizations that have recently left The Town behind. The Illuminaries have done plenty of sports murals, many of them depicting teams — namely the Warriors and Athletics — and athletes that are no longer in Oakland.

“For her to embrace Oakland is this new energy … It’s inspiration. Oakland needs that. America needs that right now,” Ha said.

The Illuminaries’ mural, which the group plans to finish Saturday, covered one of their old pieces depicting former Golden State player Klay Thompson, who won four NBA titles with the team before joining the Dallas Mavericks in 2024.

“Art is impermanent,” Ha said. Gold? Not so much.

Thompson had seen the piece, so “for it to have had its run, for us to bless the wall, that was good enough,” Ha said. “Now it’s time for some new blood.”

— Also reported from Los Angeles.