From her signature golden halo to her glimmering dress to her joyous attitude, Alysa Liu brought gold to the 2026 Winter Olympics in more ways than one. Liu, the first American woman to win figure skating gold since Sasha Cohen in 2006, finished her freeskate with a flick of her ponytail and a beaming smile as the last notes of Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park Suite” floated over the screaming crowd. After retiring at age 16 due to burnout, few expected Liu to return to the ice at such an elite level after less than two years of training. The 20 year-old champion explained that her goal, in a sport notorious for perfectionism, was simply to share her art– and that mindset has captivated fans around the world.
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Alysa Liu is the eldest of five children, all born through surrogacy. Her father, Arthur Liu, helped lead the Tiananmen Square Protests as a student in Guangzhou. The direct result of this? Being placed on a most wanted list and fleeing to the United States as a political dissident; he later earned a law degree and became an attorney. Inspired by Michelle Kwan and Kristi Yamaguchi, Arthur placed Alysa into skating lessons with coach Laura Lipetsky at the age of five at the Oakland Ice Center, where her talent quickly became clear. At only ten years old, Liu became the youngest female figure skater to ever win intermediate gold in the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Her advanced technique was clear as she completed a triple Salchow, a type of edge jump, in combination with a double toe loop, with another triple Salchow later in the freeskate. Alysa’s skill on the ice continued to grow as she competed in the Asian Open Trophy, several World Junior Championships, the International Challenge Cup, and more.
However, it was at the ISU Junior Grand Prix in 2019 to the sound of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” that Alysa Liu took the gold and debuted a quadruple Lutz, making her the first American female figure skater to complete the move, notably in combination with a triple Axel jump, in competition. The following year, Liu’s father decided to switch from coach Lipetsky to Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali, who she would work with in addition to Canadian coaches Lori Nichol and Lee Barkell.
In 2022, Liu became the youngest athlete on the American Olympic team. Although China attempted to recruit her as part of its overseas naturalization project– the recruitment of foreign athletes with Chinese lineage, such as Eileen Gu– but her father held firm in his denial, opposed to the human rights violations of Chinese leadership. Throughout the Beijing Olympics, the Liu family was targeted by the Chinese government– a mysterious caller requesting Arthur and Alysa’s passport information for the Olympics, a man asking Alysa to follow him to his Beijing apartment after she posted about abuses against the Uyghur ethnic group. The teenage skater told Fox News Digital reporters at the USOPC Media Summit that the experience made her wonder, “Am I in some prank show? Is this world real?”
After winning a bronze medal in the 2022 World Championships, Liu announced via Instagram that, after achieving her lifelong dream of competing in the Olympics, she would be retiring from skating, later explaining that the sport took up so much of her life, she had little time to do anything else. Liu explained to “In the Loop” Podcast in 2024 that having free time, especially in summer, was a new and welcome experience, “I went to the beach a lot, picked up a ton of new hobbies, tried new food, just went out into the world.” Liu loves watching movies as well as anime, with her favorites including “Chainsaw Man” and “Jujutsu Kaisen.” A student at UCLA, she was also able to focus on pursuing a degree in psychology– working to better understand mental health in the context of elite sports, as well as to learn more about herself.
However, a ski trip to Lake Tahoe in 2024 shifted her perspective entirely, the adrenaline and the challenge of skiing reminding her of what she had loved about figure skating. So Alysa Liu returned to the ice– but on her terms. She spoke with her coaches and agreed to take on a more collaborative creative role, emphasizing to Cosmopolitan, “No one tells me what I’m gonna wear. No one tells me how my hair is gonna be. No one’s gonna try to change me.”
After her podium-worthy performance in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Liu has become a legend on social media, especially to Gen Z, with her Instagram following jumping from around 300,000 pre-Olympics to over five million after the event. Her love for her sport and intense resilience shine through constantly; Liu explained to a “60 Minutes” feature, “I love struggling, actually. It makes me feel alive.” The alt-style skater is fighting back against the “no pain, no gain” culture that has pervaded competitive figure skating and the professional world as a whole. Taking a lesson from Alysa means to focus on enjoying the journey and the opportunity to put something beautiful out into the world, rather than focusing on the end result. Even if mistakes are made, Liu says, “There’s no way to lose.”
