After retiring at age 16, Alysa Liu is back: “Skating is my skating now” – Exclusive 

It’s the end of a 40-minute one-on-one interview with Alysa Liu, and I ask the now 19-year-old how she would frame her own story as she re-emerges into the international figure skating scene, over two years since her retirement in April of 2022 – at age 16.

“Skating is my skating now,” the 2022 world bronze medallist says after a long pause to think.

“It’s all me now... my costume designs, how I do my hair, my program [choices]. I can really incorporate the arts I’ve always liked.

She continues: “Two years ago, I would have never imagined this moment, to be honest. It’s weird, but I actually like... I love skating. And now I can really explore it in any way.”

It marks a tonal shift for Liu, still only a teenager, after climbing her way onto the sport’s biggest stages in the lead-up to the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, where she finished in sixth place.

Liu announced her comeback to the sport in a social media post in March of this year and is set to have a full schedule this season. She’ll compete internationally for the first time since Worlds in April of 2022 at this weekend’s Budapest Trophy in Hungary, an ISU Challenger Series event.

“Skating's different now because I'm coming back as an adult,” Liu says, speaking to Olympics.com from the Los Angeles area, where she now lives while attending UCLA.

“I'm taking more like ownership of it, I guess. And like... no one's driving me to the rink; no one's overseeing everything I do.”

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Getting her driver’s license is just one of the many “real-life” experiences Liu took on in her time away from the sport.

Having become the youngest U.S. skater ever to win a national title at 13 in 2019, Liu’s rise ahead of Beijing 2022 was well-documented. The youngster possessed a cadre of jumps that earned her back-to-back American titles, and she captured the World Junior bronze in 2020.

While she arrived at her debut Olympics as one of the top in the sport, Liu says she’s most thankful for the wherewithal to step away from skating at the end of that season.

It’s something she’d like to see other athletes do mid-career, too – if they’re able.

“I do think if an athlete can do it, they should step away for a bit, take some time off,” she says. “Probably not as much time as I did, but I needed that time... I think it's really good for the soul. ... I think that if I stayed in [competitive skating] I would not have enjoyed it, obviously, as much. And I experienced so many new things outside of it. And I think one of the most important things in life is to experience new things. And it's hard to experience new things when you are in the same position [as an athlete].”

Alysa Liu: "I got to exist with myself as a non-skater"

Away from the ice, Alysa Liu has been busy the last two and a half years.

After finishing the competitive Olympic season in 2022, she joined her American teammates for the Stars on Ice tour (“it was an unbeatable feeling”), and then took a much-needed gap year to figure out her next move.

She spent time with family and friends, went on her first “true vacation,” she says, took dance classes, saw concerts, went bowling a lot, hiked the Himalaya Mountains with friends and landed on attending university at UCLA.

“I got to exist with myself as a non-skater, which was... that was the first time, you know,” Liu reflected. “And I got to see what my hobbies really were. It was very different.

Liu had a fashion epiphany, too: “I was wearing skating clothes 24-7 because I didn't know my style. I just wore the default leggings and a tight long-sleeved black shirt because I didn't need anything else; I didn't really have a life outside of skating. When I stopped, I could more explore all of those parts combined.”

“I’d say my style now is authentic: It reflects how I’m feeling and existing,” Liu said. “When I was a skater before, I never set aside time to really get to know myself; I’d always just listen to others. Now that I’ve lived a few more years, I feel like I can artistically express myself in many ways.”

A ski trip inspires a comeback to skating

Having moved to L.A. for school, Liu got to do another non-skater first: Go skiing over the winter holiday break.

It turned out to be a pivotal decision.

“When I was skating, I never was allowed to ski because the risk of injury was too high,” Liu said. “[When we went skiing], it reminded me of skating like nothing I had done before. ... After it, I was like, ‘Wait, maybe I should go to skate a public session for fun because it might be just as fun as skiing was.’”

First, Liu had to find her skates.

When she strapped them on, she said they felt “weird:” “They're like high tops,” she said. “It's weird to bend in them and they're so restricting. But that's just how skates are.”

Liu surprised herself at the public session. After struggling to remember how to stop properly and “definitely feeling like a beginner,” Liu said her muscle memory kicked in. By the end of that first session, she was landing triple Salchows.

As Liu rediscovered her love for being on the ice, she was having important conversations with herself and the people around her.

“I [used to] hate the struggle in the moment,” she said. “I loved competing... but the struggle, I didn’t like that at all. [But] I’ve learned to appreciate that when I do struggle, that's when I find the most willpower. And I really like having a lot of willpower... because when your life is like going the way you want it to, nothing is too hard, you don't really need willpower. But now I could appreciate the struggle.”

A friend made a crucial point to Liu: “She goes, ‘you're still young; you have time.’ ... And she was saying if I decide to not [to come back to skating that] I might regret the choice. She was like, ‘I'd say, just do it. And you can always stop.’”

Liu agreed.

“I don't want to regret” not trying, Liu said was her response. “And so I was like, ‘Yeah, I'll just do it.’ I didn’t want the unknown to be wasted potential... like a I-could-have-come-back-to-skating type of thing.

“So I was like, ‘I might as well just see how it is.’”

"We're finding every way we can to make it happen"

Having been back on the ice consistently for the last seven months, Liu said the hardest thing to get back is her stamina: “Like, a four-minute program? It’s so hard,” she said, laughing.

“After I announced that I was coming back, people would see me at the rink and would say, ‘Wow, it looks like you haven't taken time off! You still have your jumps! That's crazy!’ I'm like, okay, sure, it may seem like that... but wait until you see me try to run a program.

“It's been very difficult stamina-wise. I’ve been working on my breath control and just working on being able to do jumps and choreography at the same time without stopping. ... This summer was all about focusing a lot on like the simple part because I can do the jumps and stuff, but it's about like doing them in a program that feels a lot harder than before. But yeah, I've just been chipping away at that.”

Liu is working with her team from the San Francisco area where she grew up, including coach Phillip DiGuglielmo and choreographer Massimo Scali, who travel down often to L.A.

She also has an extended team in place there to help her, too, but is often running drills, practices and choreo sessions on her own.

Liu is also focusing on something that she says feels really refreshing: Enjoy every step of the process.

“I don't know, I'm just like... looking forward to honestly everything,” she said. “Juggling skating and school at the same time, it’s made me more determined: I definitely want this to work. So we're finding every way we can to make it happen.”

Alysa Liu eyes Milano Cortina 2026

Oh, you’re wondering about the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026?

Rest assured, Alysa Liu definitely wants to go for a second time.

“First, the Olympics was so cool. I do want to go again,” she said, breaking into a big smile about her Beijing experience. “And that is definitely a goal of mine. But I have so many other goals now that I want to get through first.”

That aforementioned stamina has been her first high hurdle, she said, which will be tested at Budapest Trophy before she heads to her first Grand Prix in three years, Skate Canada International in Halifax later this month (23-25 October).

Within that is her next goal: Getting used to the rigours of competitions again.

“I want to keep pushing myself, like not letting myself give in to the fatigue and keep going to like a ton of competitions, just like get used to that again,” she shared. “It's so different from practice, you know, the six-minute warmup, the dress, the audience... all that stuff. It's hard to replicate in practice. And I definitely need to get used to that feeling again.”

"My perspective has totally changed"

Liu attended the USA’s high-performance camp (known in skating as Champ’s Camp) in late August, and said she was buoyed by being surrounded by such excellence, including fellow former U.S. champions Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

“I like being around that” level of skating, Liu said. “You know what I'm saying? Like, when you're around successful people, you want to be at their level, too.”

As she steps back into the familiar figure skating fold, Liu appears settled in her own skin. She didn’t think two years ago she’d be back; and now she’s more grateful for ever that she left in the first place.

“I mean, I think it was really important for me to experience a different life where skating isn't everything and where I had more freedom to do other things,” she said.

Liu takes a beat here before reflecting more: “I don't know, I... 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, it's so different.”

“I really had to get out of the bubble I put myself in and just take a step back from it so I can see it a little differently,” she said. “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.”