Two-time U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu announces coaching change

Reigning U.S. champion Alysa Liu announced today that she will work with a new team of coaches that includes Lee Barkell, Lori Nichol and Massimo Scali. Liu plans to remain at her Oakland, California, base.

"I am very excited to announce that I will be training under the guidance of a new team of coaches," she said in a statement released by U.S. Figure Skating. "I look forward to working with all my coaches even though some of them are located in different parts of the world."

Previously, Liu had worked with Laura Lipetsky.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank my former coach Laura Lipetsky for everything she has done for me since the beginning of my career," Liu said. "We've worked so closely together and she has helped me get to where I am today."

Liu, just 14, is Team USA’s biggest hope to end its Olympic medal drought in women's figure skating at Beijing 2022. From 1968 to 2006, the United States had landed at least one woman on the podium at the Olympic Games, including gold medallists Peggy Fleming (1968), Dorothy Hamill (1976), Kristi Yamaguchi (1992), Tara Lipiniski (1998), and Sarah Hughes (2002). But since Sasha Cohen’s silver medal at Torino 2006, the Americans have been shut out.

Liu, who won’t be a senior international competitor until the Olympic season, hopes to change that, and has already made history as the youngest skater in history to land a triple Axel in international competition and the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple Lutz.