{"id":777826,"date":"2026-02-20T20:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/777826\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T20:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T20:17:11","slug":"alysa-liu-released-the-pressure-reclaimed-her-joy-and-turned-it-into-olympic-gold-alysa-liu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/777826\/","title":{"rendered":"Alysa Liu released the pressure, reclaimed her joy and turned it into Olympic gold | Alysa Liu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alysa Liu made her way through a mixed zone teeming with hundreds of reporters at a quarter past midnight early Friday morning, an Olympic gold medal draped around her neck, the sequins in her color-coordinated dress glimmering beneath the klieg lights and crush of television cameras. The 20-year-old from West Oakland had just become the first American woman to win figure skating\u2019s biggest prize<\/a> in 24 years, drilling seven clean triples to leapfrog a pair of Japanese rivals from third place after Tuesday\u2019s short program and gatecrash her sport\u2019s most rarefied air. But to hear Liu tell it, her second gold in 12 days was merely a passing footnote in a Milan fortnight she doesn\u2019t want to end.<\/p>\n

Liu\u2019s carefree mindset should and will be studied in the weeks, months and years after these Olympics \u2013 especially these<\/a> Olympics<\/a> \u2013 as a counterpoint to the results-obsessed mindsets that have shattered the mental wellbeing of so many athletes thrust into the pressure-cooker of the world\u2019s biggest sporting event. She spoke candidly and insightfully on how her unique journey from child prodigy to burnout case to second-act skater gave rise to an indifference to scores or placements. All she wanted in the end was a chance to make the US team and share her artistry on the world stage.<\/p>\n

Only a few meters away stood Kaori Sakamoto, the silver medalist and one of the most joyful people ever to skate on Olympic ice, dabbing away a steady stream of tears with a wrinkled tissue, brought down by the cold arithmetic and brutal reckoning of this unforgiving sport. The 25-year-old from Kobe, who is retiring after this season, had won a shock bronze medal four years ago at the Beijing Olympics only when a nailed-on favorite who\u2019d never lost a competition at the senior level went to pieces in the free skate<\/a>. She\u2019d backed up that breakthrough with a run of three world championships in the years since. But a couple of faint mistakes on Friday night \u2013 a wobbly landing on a triple flip, a missed triple toe in a combination \u2013 left her short of Liu\u2019s marker and lamenting the storybook ending that might have been. Sometimes third can feel like first. Other times second can feel like nothing at all.<\/p>\n

Liu\u2019s journey since Beijing, where she\u2019d finished sixth on her Olympic debut, was different. She\u2019d vanished from the sport only months after the 2022 Games citing mental fatigue, making it Instagram-official<\/a> before anyone could talk her out of it. She started school at UCLA and studied psychology. She went hiking in the Himalayas with friends. She discovered herself outside a sport where she said she\u2019d felt boxed in since winning US nationals at the age of 13<\/a>, when her 4ft 6in frame left her too short to reach the top of the podium without a hand from the other medalists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hated skating when I quit. Like, I really didn\u2019t like it,\u201d Liu said in the run-up to Milan. \u201cI didn\u2019t care about competitions. I didn\u2019t care about places. I didn\u2019t care about skaters. I didn\u2019t care about my programs. I just wanted to, like, get away. I wanted nothing to do with that. I hated fame. I hated social media. I didn\u2019t like interviews. Like, I hated all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gold medalist Alysa Liu celebrates alongside silver medalist Kaori Sakamoto and bronze medalist Ami Nakai of Japan. Photograph: Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

But a chance reconnection with her love for movement while gliding down the mountain during a Lake Tahoe ski trip led her back to the ice. Gradually at first<\/a>, once a week at public sessions at the Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo, where she found the complex jumps that had propelled her rise had not completely abandoned her. Over time she rediscovered a love for skating not as a competitive pursuit but a vehicle for self-expression. She soon fixed her sights on a comeback, but only under certain conditions. Her father, Arthur, who had poured untold sums into molding his daughter into the next Michelle Kwan \u2013 another Chinese-American skating icon from California \u2013 would no longer be part of the team. Alysa Liu would be the CEO of Alysa Liu Inc, having final say over everything from her costumes to her music to her diet to her training schedule. Most importantly, the results wouldn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Enter Alysa 2.0: a term she dislikes, but an accurate shorthand for the complete reinvention of a skater on her own terms. Sporting an eye-catching frenulum piercing and a bleached tree-ring hairstyle that has required years to cultivate<\/a>, she has embraced a nonconformist streak that\u2019s made her a darling of outsiders everywhere. But the transformation runs far deeper than aesthetics.<\/p>\n

\u201cProtecting my identity is my main goal,\u201d she said in Thursday\u2019s aftermath. \u201cI know exactly what it\u2019s like to not have that. My experience with it before has taught me how I should guard myself. I don\u2019t go online that much. I hang out with my friends and family as much as possible. Being grounded is really what keeps me. I love exploring other hobbies, doing side-quests and what not. It keeps me curious and I\u2019m protecting that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu first signaled her comeback was for real at last year\u2019s world championships<\/a> in Boston, when she became the first American to win figure skating\u2019s biggest competition outside the Olympics since Kimmie Meissner in 2006. The bumps in the road since then have ranged from the prosaic to the macabre. There were music rights headaches<\/a>. Dress issues. Her planned short program music for the Olympic season was scrapped<\/a> when the artist was found at the center of a police investigation after the remains of a teenage girl were discovered in the trunk of his impounded car. (Regular figure skating things.)<\/p>\n

To hear Phillip DiGuglielmo put it, the Olympic gold was a \u201ckind of taboo\u201d subject and didn\u2019t even enter open conversation until November. One half of the thrice-fired, thrice-rehired coaching duo \u2013 along with Massimo Scali \u2013 that have been with Liu from the start, DiGuglielmo reflected on how Liu\u2019s reframed expectations have rubbed off on the team. Stress management ahead of Thursday\u2019s free skate, for instance, meant two glasses of Pol Roger champagne before their walk over to the rink.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a little pre-celebratory thing, like we learned from her,\u201d he said. \u201cThird place or fourth place would have still been an incredible accomplishment. I can\u2019t sit here and say she has to win. That doesn\u2019t jibe with her values. And as a coach you have to amplify the values of the athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cHer goal was about showing her art. We get a lot of flak. Pretty hair and pretty dresses and sequins. It\u2019s a sport. It\u2019s a hard sport. It\u2019s a split-second timing sport. You get a little bit of adrenaline and it changes your timing. Her internal clock is just ticking along. Her goal was to just make the Olympic team. That was really the big deal for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

DiGuglielmo, who was initially skeptical of the comeback and tried to talk her out of it, had stood alongside Liu through her dizzying, unfulfilling first chapter, giving him a unique perspective for how far she has come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she was younger, she has no memories of any of the places she went to, or any of the competitions she did,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was so not happy that she wound up compartmentalizing. She does not remember that she went to junior worlds, or that she went to the junior Grand Prix final. She doesn\u2019t remember any of that. So last year\u2019s tagline was making memories. If we\u2019re in Japan, we\u2019re getting ramen. We wanted to say, \u2018Here we are, this is what we\u2019re doing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That odyssey culminated on Thursday night, when an arena once headlined by Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga gave rise to a new American original, an unthinkable outcome two years ago when Liu was off the grid roving the trails around Mount Everest with skating firmly in the rear view. Liu is now the reigning world and Olympic champion, flying home from Italy after Saturday\u2019s exhibition gala with two golds following last week\u2019s team event<\/a> as the face of US figure skating, if not the sport itself. But more importantly she\u2019s offered proof that joy, not pressure, can prove the sharper edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy story is more important than anything to me, and that\u2019s what I will hold dear,\u201d Liu said. \u201cThis journey has been incredible. I have no complaints, and I\u2019m so grateful for everything. It\u2019s just how my life has gone. Everything in general has led me to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n