​Alysa Liu and Declan Farmer tacked ESPY awards onto their successful years after winning gold at the Milan Cortina Games.Liu won Best Breakthrough Athlete over hockey player Macklin Celebrini and football players Drake Maye and Fernando Mendoza.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”I’ve been in my sport since I was 5 years old, and I had some really rough times in it, and I took two years off,” Liu said in her acceptance speech at Lincoln Center in New York City. “So, for me, it really feels like I broke through in my own way, for myself and for my sport.”Liu is the first U.S. women’s singles figure skater to win Olympic gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002. Later in 2002, Hughes also won an ESPY for Best U.S. Olympian.Farmer won Best Athlete with a Disability — his second ESPY, 12 years after his first — after leading the U.S. men’s sled hockey team to a fifth consecutive Paralympic title with tournament highs of 26 points and 15 goals.The other nominees were fellow Milan Cortina gold medalists Jake Adicoff and Oksana Masters from Nordic skiing, plus Susannah Scaroni, who in in 2025 won wheelchair marathons in Sydney, Chicago and New York City.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementMilan Cortina Olympians were also nominated for Record-Breaking Performance (Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo), Championship Performance (U.S. goalies Aerin Frankel and Connor Hellebuyck), Play (hockey players Megan Keller and Jack Hughes’ golden goals) and Team (U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams).Darrell Doucette2028 Los Angeles Olympics: Potential breakout U.S. star athletesThe Los Angeles Olympics, with a record 353 medal events, open July 14, 2028. Nick Zaccardi,