Eagle-eyed figure skating fans may have noticed something on Alysa Liu’s front teeth as she smiled after her gold-medal winning performance in the women’s free skate on Thursday at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, secured the U.S.’ first women’s figure skating medal in 20 years.
The 20-year-old Gen Z figure skater’s unique look has made headlines several times throughout the 2026 Winter Olympics, with many nothing her alt-girl style on showcase, from her striped hairstyle and thick eyeliner and now her piercing.
That’s right — the small piece of medal on the gold medalist’s upper teeth is a piercing.
No, her teeth aren’t pierced. It’s a frenulum piercing, often called a “smiley” piercing, which goes through a slim piece of tissue connecting your upper lip and gums.
Liu told NBC she pierced her own frenulum with the help of her sister a little over two years ago.
“I had my sister, like, hold up my lip, and I was like looking in the mirror, and then I had my piercing needle, and then I, yeah I just put it through,” she said.
Though the piercing may look like it would hurt, Liu said she would rate the pain a “zero out of 10.”
“You can’t feel it,” she said.
Liu traveled to the Midwest before the Olympics kicked off to get her striped hairstyle done, she said.
She said she adds a stripe to her hair every year, and she’s currently rocking three years’ worth of rings.
“You need, like, salon-grade products,” she said, “so I went to a salon in St. Louis.”
If there was an Olympic event for hair coloring, Liu’s stylist would have been a gold medal contender for the platinum stripes in Liu’s naturally dark hair.
“This is exactly what I wanted,” Liu told NBC.
The San Francisco Bay Area skater finished with a career-best 226.79 points in women’s figure skating free skate on Thursday, taking home gold.
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