What would make Alysa Liu walk away from the sport she had trained for her entire life? She simply wanted her life back. After retiring from skating at sixteen years old in 2022, Liu decided to make a comeback. This comeback would become one of the most remarkable stories in sports, leading to her gold medal win at the 2026 Olympics.
Alysa Liu has been skating since the age of five years old. She dedicated herself to the competition of the sport until she was sixteen years old. After placing sixth in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Liu decided to retire. Liu took a step down for multiple reasons: extreme burnout, immense pressure, and a loss of passion for the sport. While competing, she faced restrictive training conditions like lack of personal autonomy and isolation.
The San Francisco Chronicle stated that “She has been skating since she was 5 and wants her own life. She wants to hang out with her four younger siblings, and live at her house in Richmond. Things she couldn’t do while she pursued an Olympic-level skating career.” After years of skating, Liu didn’t see the rink as just a place to practice, she saw it as her home and found it difficult to step away from something so special to her. She fell in love with the sport, not only pursuing it as an extracurricular activity, but something that she felt defined her, Iona Hersh stated in her VNHSmirror article.
In March 2024, Alysa Liu announced that she would be returning to skating. During her time away, Liu rediscovered her passion for the sport and realized she missed the competition. This return would be completely different from her past experiences. An article from Good Housekeeping stated, “This time, however, Liu returned with a completely different mindset, skating on her own terms and prioritizing joy over pressure.”
Her return became extremely beneficial for her, as she started to win many competitions, even qualifying for the 2026 Olympics in Milan, Italy. As stated in the San Francisco Chronicle, “At the Olympics, she delivered the performance of her career, winning the women’s figure skating gold medal and ending a 24-year drought for American women in the event.” What truly made this victory so special was the challenging past that Liu carried with her through it all. What was once a sport that wrecked her, returned into one that made her happier, and more confident than ever.
