Sharp blades pierce the ice below her. Her expression softens with joy and freedom, replacing the usual fear and confinement she, and many others, have experienced on the ice. But who could skate at the Winter Olympics without their heart racing with fear and uncertainty? Who could remind young girls that passion in your sport means prioritizing the journey over the results, and that winning doesn’t always measure your success?
That person is Alysa Liu. Her figure skating career was marked by record-breaking highs, a brutal burnout, and a comeback that felt almost too cinematic to be real. Through all of it, she never stopped being unmistakably herself.
Liu’s journey began in 2010 when her father, a fan of Michelle Kwan, brought five-year-old Alysa to the Oakland Ice Center in California. She started in group lessons and quickly moved to individual sessions, her talent impossible to contain. By 2015, she was placing at regionals, and by 2016, at just 10 years old, she became the youngest female skater ever to earn the intermediate gold medal at the U.S. Championships, winning by less than a point. The records kept coming. In 2018, she became the youngest skater to land a triple Axel in international competition, and the following year, she made history again as the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple jump in competition, and the first woman in the world to land a quad and a triple Axel in the same program. In 2020, she defended her U.S. title with a national scoring record of 235.52, becoming the first female skater to win back-to-back national titles since 2013.
By the time she competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics at just 16, she had already accumulated more records than most skaters see in a lifetime. She helped Team USA earn bronze in the team event, and a month later won bronze at the World Championships, the first U.S. woman on the world podium since 2016. From the outside, it looked like an unstoppable ascent. Behind the scenes, she was falling apart.
In April 2022, Alysa retired. She was 16 years old. “I honestly never thought I would have accomplished as much as I did,” she said. “I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone.” But satisfaction wasn’t the whole story. In interviews, she described feeling traumatized by the relentless pressure of elite skating, the daily grind, the slow erosion of joy, and a deep longing for something that looked like a normal life. Her father described how she had grown deeply unhappy, avoiding the rink entirely, the place that had once felt like home now felt like a cage. She enrolled at UCLA the following year, spent time with friends, traveled, and even climbed to the base camp of Mount Everest. For the first time in over a decade, the ice wasn’t her whole world, and for a while, that was exactly what she needed.
But it called her back. When Alysa returned to competitive skating in 2024, something had shifted, something quieter and more powerful than ambition. She chose her own music, collaborated closely on choreography, and trained on her own terms. The sport became hers again, not a machine she was feeding, but a canvas. At the 2025 U.S. Championships, she skated her short program to “Promise” by Laufey and earned silver, the song itself feeling like a tender acknowledgment of everything she had survived. The audience felt it. Two months later, she became the first U.S. woman to win the World Championship title in 19 years, standing on top of the podium in her home country in Boston, not as the prodigy she once was, but as someone who had chosen to be there.
Then came Milan. At the 2026 Winter Olympics, 20-year-old Alysa Liu delivered what can only be described as a storybook second act, winning gold in both the team event and women’s singles, becoming the first U.S. woman to take two golds at a single Olympics since 2002. Two days later, she was back on the ice for the Exhibition Gala, this time in a sparkling blue gown, skating to “Stateside,” the PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson remix, recreating moves from the music video with a grin that suggested she was having the time of her life. The crowd lost it. The internet lost it. Within days, “Stateside” had shot to number one on the Spotify Daily Chart, prompting PinkPantheress herself to post: “Girl ‘Stateside’ was at the mf Olympics! Dreams really do come true.” It was quintessentially Alysa, joyful, unbothered, and completely herself.
What followed was a whirlwind of TV appearances and a Teen Vogue cover. There was even a brief controversy when manufacturing defects caused some Olympic medals to come apart, with organizers asking athletes to return theirs for repair. Then, on March 8th, she quietly announced she’d be skipping the World Championships in Prague, posting on Instagram: “There’s been a lot of exciting things happening since my return from Milan, so I’m taking some time for that… see yall next season.” No drama. No explanation needed.
That ease is part of what makes her so compelling. In a sport notorious for controlling young women’s bodies and breaking their spirits, Liu has been vocal about training on her own terms and refusing to let anyone diminish her love for skating in the name of results. When she won gold in the short program in Milan, her first instinct wasn’t to celebrate herself; it was to run over and embrace Japanese skater Ami Nakai, looking more overjoyed for her competitor than for her own victory. That instinct says everything. She has said she hopes young girls watching her “see that they have limitless potential” and that “it’s good to break down barriers and do risky things.” Coming from someone who walked away from the sport at 16 and came back as a double Olympic champion at 20, those words don’t just inspire, they land.
Alysa Liu’s story is ultimately one of resilience, authenticity, and joy. From a five-year-old stepping onto the ice in Oakland, to a burnt-out teenager brave enough to walk away, to a young woman who came back and won the world, on her own terms, in her own way. She didn’t just reclaim her sport. She reclaimed herself. In an era where burnout is almost a badge of honor, Alysa Liu is proof that joy, self-trust, and authenticity aren’t just personally fulfilling. They’re a winning strategy.
