Since 2019, Alysa Liu has taken the figure skating world by storm. She’s been breaking records and garnering numerous awards since a young age, but it’s her authenticity and alternative style that have placed the 20-year-old at the forefront of Team USA. Her distinct haloed hair and smiley piercing, her emphasis on self-preservation, and her relaxed, joyful nature have not only landed Liu two gold medals, but also established her as a role model for expressing individuality and the rewards of going against the grain in such a technical sport.
Last Thursday, Liu became the first American to win gold in the women’s free skate since 2002 and the first American woman to medal in figure skating in 20 years. These momentous feats are not new to her — she currently holds the title for youngest U.S. figure skating champion after landing three clean triple axels in a single competition at the age of 13 — but the immense pressure, a lack of autonomy over her daily habits, and the feeling that skating was consuming her life spurred her decision to retire from the sport altogether at 16.
During this hiatus, Liu continued to push herself off the rink, whether that was studying psychology at UCLA or hiking to Everest Base Camp.
On this journey, she found that athletic competition was not something she was ready to give up and decided to make a tentative return to figure skating. As she slowly found her footing again on the ice, she made the shocking decision to make a full comeback and ultimately train for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.
Her coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali, told her it was a bad idea. Past skaters had been unsuccessful in similar comebacks because their bodies were not consistently trained, and DiGuglielmo and Scali feared that this would be Liu’s fate. She, however, insisted that she not only had the discipline and determination to reach the level she was at before, but that she could achieve it on her own terms.
Liu had remarked on how skating before had felt like her father’s business more than an expression of her artistry, and was definitive in her decision to exclude him from her return to the rink.
“He’s a great father, I just didn’t want him to be as invested in it as he was before,” Liu stated on 60 Minutes.
With Liu in charge, her routines would no longer be created without her final say. No one would tell her when she was doing too much or not doing enough. Her diet would no longer be dictated by anyone but her.
“No one’s going to starve me, tell me what I can and can’t eat,” Liu asserted.
Over-involved parents in competitive youth sports is not an uncommon occurrence. After investing upwards of tens of thousands of dollars in an expensive sport like figure skating, it’s plausible for it to become a parent’s entire life, even at the expense of their child’s wants and needs.
In an interview with The Times, Olympic figure skating coach Kori Ade remarks on the difficulties of keeping parents from “backseat coaching” and ensuring that their child is the one participating, not them.
“You have the parent that is perhaps not even just living their lives through their child, but they’re so anxious for their child’s sake that they can’t help themselves,” Audrey Weisiger, an Olympic figure skating coach, said.
In a sport like figure skating in which aesthetics and image are essential to scoring, it’s especially understandable why a young skater like Liu wouldn’t want to return to competition under such circumstances.
Liu’s decision to take control over her training has evidently had an immediate impact on her performance, one that is most clearly expressed in the free skate program that won Liu a second gold medal in the Milano Cortina Olympics. In a graceful and vibrant routine to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park Suite,” Liu seemed to soar effortlessly across the ice, demonstrating tangible joy and liberation that anyone watching can feel. Liu is a self-proclaimed artist as opposed to an athlete, and this performance showcases the freedom she has now to share that with the world.
“I came here with one purpose and it was to share my art,” Liu said.
This simple and definitive statement sums up the shift in perspective Liu needed to return to figure skating in a healthy way. With a new goal in mind, her artistry and joy became her vehicles of success, rather than intense, constant misery with the promise of a valuable payoff.
In a sport where competition can be defined by your body and how you present yourself, especially as a young girl, it can become easy to be swallowed whole by how everyone else is telling you to look and act. With Alysa Liu at the helm of women’s figure skating today, her commitment to reshaping her complicated relationship with a sport that she loves will hopefully inspire other young athletes to follow her down the path of prioritizing joy and self-protection over engaging in harmful habits to maintain the facade of perfection.
“[I hope young girls] see that they have limitless potential,” Liu said “It’s good to break down barriers and do risky things and … go against some people sometimes. It’s liberating.”
