The Rise and Fall of Gracie Gold

Gracie Gold was once the shining star of American figure skating, a two-time national champion and Olympic medalist with a name seemingly destined for greatness. But behind the glittering performances was a battle with mental health that nearly ended both her career and life. Her meteoric rise, devastating fall, and eventual confrontation with her demons reveal just how mentally and physically demanding the world of figure skating truly is.

(Image Credit to U.S. Figure Skating - 2020 U.S. Nationals)

Gracie Gold burst onto the senior scene like a firework, brilliant, precise, and impossible to ignore by those around her.  With a combination of textbook technique and classic American elegance, she quickly positioned herself as the heir to skating legends like Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan. By 2014, she was crowned U.S. National Champion and selected to represent the United States at the Sochi Winter Olympics, where she helped to secure a bronze medal in the team event and finished fourth in the individual competition, narrowly missing the podium but capturing the world’s attention. She had it all: technical strength, especially her signature triple Lutz, charisma on and off the ice, and a name made for headlines. Endorsements, fan adoration, and media coverage followed. At 18 years old, she wasn’t just a skater; she was a symbol of American excellence. 

But with that spotlight came expectations and pressure that would soon prove suffocating. Skating was never just a sport for Gold; it became an identity, a burden to carry. Her performances had to be flawless. Her body had to meet a standard. Her personality had to shine. In the seasons following Sochi, Gracie’s results began to fluctuate. She made coaching changes, chased perfection, and tried to live up to the image that was becoming harder to maintain. Beneath the calm poise she showed in interviews, cracks were forming. Skating fans, often hungry for consistency and dominance, began to question her resolve. But few knew the battles being waged behind the scenes, battles not with other skaters, but within her mind. 

The 2016-2017 season marked the most visible unraveling of Gracie’s career. Poor performances, including an uncharacteristically low short program score of 37.81 at Skate America, left fans shocked and confused. Gone was the powerful, confident skater who once electrified arenas. In her place was a young woman clearly in pain. In 2017, Gold announced she would be stepping away from the sport. She later revealed that she had been struggling with anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder that had taken her to the edge of survival. 

“You don’t get any medals for suffering in silence the longest,” she later said, breaking open a conversation that figure skating, and much of elite sports, had long avoided. 

What had begun as a dream career had become a nightmare of self-doubt, distorted body image, and emotional collapse, fueled in part by a sport that often demands inhuman perfection, especially from its young women.

After months of treatment and soul-searching, Gracie Gold chose not to disappear. Instead, she returned to the ice, not to chase medals, but to reclaim a piece of herself. In 2019 and 2020, she competed at the Nationals again. Although her technical difficulty was scaled back and her placements modest, her short programs, clean, expressive, and deeply personal, brought audiences to their feet. For many, it wasn’t about scores anymore. It was about courage. 

Her comeback wasn’t a traditional success story. She didn’t reach the podium again or qualify for another Olympics. But in showing up, openly, vulnerably, and on her terms, she did something arguably braver. Gold’s story forces us to confront the dark side of elite sports. How many other athletes smile through silent suffering? How many are pushed past their limits by a system that often values results over wellness? 

Today, Gracie has become a quiet advocate for mental health, using her voice to talk openly about issues that nearly ended not only her career but also her life. The rise and fall of Gracie Gold isn’t a simple tragedy; it’s a story of beauty, pain, and survival. It’s about a young woman who flew high, crashed hard, and found the strength to stand back up. 

In a sport that prizes perfection, the true victories are often invisible, measured not in medals but in resilience, self-awareness, and survival. Figure skating may dazzle with its beauty and grace, but beneath the surface lies a world of relentless pressure, silent struggles, and extraordinary strength. Sometimes, the most powerful performance is simply the act of continuing.

Article written by Zuzanna ‘Zanna’ Wymysłowska