Alysa Liu won gold and everyone Googled 'figure skating lessons' See the data.
A USA TODAY Sports analysis of Google Trends shows searches for figure skating lessons peaked in February 2026, surpassing prior Olympic years.
No matter how you slice it, U. S. figure skating had a successful 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
First, the United States won team figure skating gold. Then, Alysa Liu secured the first Olympic gold medal in singles for an American woman since 2002. It turns out, figure skating also had a successful Olympics back home in the United States.
The phrase "figure skating lessons" spiked to new highs in the United States during February, a USA TODAY Sports analysis of Google Trends data showed. While Olympic years often bring a bump in interest, February 2026 at least doubled any previous Olympic year since 2009. Google Trends uses a 0-to-100 relative scale rather than raw data, with 100 marking the term's peak in popularity in the selected period.
By that measure, "figure skating lessons" reached its high point, or 100, in February 2026. That beats out all other Olympic bumps in the past 18 years, including the 50 that Sochi in 2014 scored. Non-Olympic years averaged a score of 24.