Alysa Liu is back: "My perspective has totally changed the way I skate"
The 19-year-old American figure skater is featured on the latest episode of the Olympics.com podcast. See excerpts and listen here.
Figure Skating
Competing on international ice for the first time in over two-and-a-half-years, American Alysa Liu claimed a statement win at the Budapest Trophy last weekend (13 October), the ISU Challenger stop.
Her gold-medal performance, highlighted by a more mature presence on the ice, sent a message to the rest of the global women's figure skating community: Alysa Liu is back.
Having stepped away from the sport at 16 years old after capturing the bronze medal at the World Championships in April of 2022, Liu retired, tucking her skates away. It took an impromptu ski trip earlier this year to spark her curiosity again in a winter sport that she'd made waves in for years prior.
"I'm glad everything happened," Liu told Olympics.com in a recent exclusive interview. "You know: Butterfly effect. Like, I don't think I would be here without it. So I don't regret anything. And I'm glad... I wouldn't change anything."
Liu is featured on this week's episode of the Olympics.com podcast, speaking to us one-on-one on a video call she took in her car outside her training facility in the Los Angeles area, where she moved last year to attend college at UCLA.
"I think it was really important for me to experience a different life where skating isn't everything and where I had, I guess, more like freedom to do other things," Liu says on the podcast, which is out now (16 October). "I really enjoy the sport so much... so much more. It's crazy. My perspective totally changed the way I think about it and the way I do skate [now]. It's so different."
Liu has signed on for a full competitive season in 2024-25, with the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 on her mind. She'll compete at her first Grand Prix in three years next week (25-27 October) at Skate Canada before making her way to NHK Trophy in Tokyo, Japan, the following week.
Her maturity is not only clear in her skating, but also in her perspective: "Looking back, I'm glad," she shared. "I'm almost glad that I had to struggle so much because I learned so much from that, you know? And I think it definitely played a role in where I am today... it definitely helped me.
"I needed to go through that."
Alysa Liu on how much she's changed
In her conversation with the Olympics.com podcast, Liu's setting had meaning: Sitting in the driver's seat of her car, she said - several times - with pride, that "no one's driving me to the rink." Adding later, "I really do enjoy driving."
Liu has entered adulthood in her two years away from competition, and said she's actually looking forward to the crush of work and time she'll face over the coming months as she ups her skating training and travel while simultaneously attending UCLA, where she lives in the dorms.
"I think this quarter of school is going to be the toughest because it's the most filled with competitions," she explained. "So dense and so, so much travelling. But it's a challenge [that] I already know and I'm willing to see through and see how I get through it."
It's perhaps the most striking aspect of Liu in this stage of her career: She is aware of the work that will go into getting back to the top of the sport. And appears ready to take it on - daily.
Liu credits that perspective to her time away... and just growing up, in general. She's more in command now; she's in the driver's seat.
"I think one of the most important things in life is to experience new things," she said. "I really had to get out of my comfort zone... the bubble I [had] put myself in and just take a step back from it so I could see it a little differently. And yeah, honestly, I think it's really going to help me in the long run. Whether it's in skating or just in life in general."
Ilia Malinin on Alysa Liu: "It's incredible"
Reigning men's world champion Ilia Malinin is just a few months older than Liu (he'll turn 20 in December; she turned 19 in August), but the American teammates have barely crossed paths previously in skating.
Malinin was a junior on the rise as Liu became the youngest U.S. skater ever to win a national title at 13 in 2019, and after her Olympic debut at Beijing 2022, they competed together at Worlds in 2022.
She retired. He went on to become the best in the world.
"It's pretty incredible to me," Malinin said recently of Liu's level of skating at Team USA's high-performance camp in August. "I was just pretty blown away" by watching her.
"And I think that this is really cool for her to come back and [be in a] competitive environment."
Liu's podcast episode also features Canadian ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver, a two-time Olympian and three-time world medallist, who has made her mark on the choreography world in the sport since retiring, while also championing athlete voices.
"When you're in the competitive sphere, that is all that you think about," Weaver says in the podcast after listening to Liu. "There's a sense that if you get off the train, you won't be able to catch up when you come back. And that keeps people, I think, in unhealthy places [where] they may not be their best versions.
"So it's so nice to hear an athlete reflect in this way; it's so refreshing."
Weaver takes the 10,000-foot view on what Liu's story can mean for - especially - young women in skating.
"It's wonderful to see women in particular prioritising their health and well-being and mental health, especially," she said. "And that's the type of comeback story that this sport really needs right now."