Alysa Liu’s Return to the Ice

Early Glory

The start of Alysa Liu’s figure skating career saw an unprecedented rise of one of the sport’s most groundbreaking skaters. She started skating at five and was quickly recognised as a prodigy with a flair for difficult jumps, and by her early teens she was already rewriting record books in the US and on the international stage. By the age of thirteen she became the youngest

U.S. women’s national champion in history, before defending her title the following year. It seemed as if Liu was carving a path straight to the top of the sport, but at the age of sixteen she shocked the figure skating world with a decision to retire from competitive skating.

The Covid 19 Pandemic lockdowns saw Liu’s life temporarily be transformed from handling pressure on the world stage to living more like an average girl her age. She said in an interview about her career before retirement,“I was so into skating that I really didn’t do much else.” With her long-held goal of making the Olympics close to being achieved she decided that if she made the US team for the 2022 Winter Olympics, she would announce her decision to retire. She finished the Olympics with a seventh place before achieving a bronze at the World Championships, announcing her retirement two weeks later.

Life Beyond the Rink

Following her retirement Liu was able to use the time her skating had taken up to try all the things she had wanted to do. She was able to get her drivers license and look forward to college. She even took a 17 day trip to Nepal to hike to Everest base camp in May 2023. Liu called her retirement “The best decision I’ve ever made”.

Almost two years after her retirement on a skiing trip with her best friend, Liu realised that she missed being an athlete. Her coach Philip DiGuglielmo described the moment she called him to say she was thinking of competing again on a 60 Minutes episode about Liu, where he said he tried to talk her out of it, but she was prepared with an answer to every reason not to. Liu made it clear to her coach that her comeback was going to be on her own terms. She would be able to pick her own program music and nobody was going to be telling her what she could and could not eat. Her coach agreed and Alysa Liu returned to the world of Competitive skating, this time for herself.

A Comeback Redefined

Since her comeback, Alysa Liu has shown a new sense of freedom in her skating and, accompanied with her personally picked program music and costumes, she delivered a stunning performance to win gold at the 2025 World Championships after returning to the sport in 2024. With her unique personality shown in choices like her hair, which she dyes a ring in each year. she has become extremely popular on social media for her inspirational approach to balancing competing with living life. Liu said, “I’m not basing my worth on skating,” and in 2026, she proved that freedom and self-belief could coexist with victory, winning gold at the Winter Olympics.

Written by Sean Furniss