By the time she retired from figure skating at the age of 16 in April 2022, Alysa Liu had in many ways already lived a full life.
She had medaled in an international competition, winning bronze at the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships in Montpellier, France. She represented the United States in the Olympics, competing at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. She had traveled the world, modeled for Ralph Lauren and even appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," accomplishments most people would chase for a lifetime.
What Liu hadn’t experienced, however, was anything resembling a normal childhood. Which informed her decision to walk away from skating four years ago.
“I started when I was 5 and I basically didn't stop until 16, and I was homeschooled my whole life,” Liu explained to NBC News about her decision to retire. “And I'm a very social person. I crave human connection. And I was living by myself for many years, no family, no friends around, all for the sake of training.”
Not only did Liu lack connection, but she also lacked control.
“And I didn't even pick my own programs, like people put me in dresses that I didn't want to wear, I was literally just like a dress-up doll and I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to do my duty of going to the Olympics for my younger self.”
After unlacing her skates and moving out of the dorm at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado, Liu finally got to live the parts of life she missed out on.
She took a whole week off from training for the first time in her life. She went on her first vacation, a trip to Mexico with friends and family, where she collected seashells and went zip-lining. She got her driver’s license so she could take her siblings to school.
Liu lived what she called the “normal, teenage-girl, older-sister life” until January 2024, when she went skiing in Lake Tahoe. It was during that trip when she hit the slopes that she realized how much she missed an adrenaline rush.
Being on the slopes inspired Liu to get back on the ice. She announced her return to competition in March 2024, and now — after a stunning gold medal at the 2025 World Championships — she has set her sights on Olympic hardware.
Liu, 20, is widely expected to represent the U.S. at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. She has not been officially selected for the figure skating team, though that process will be finalized by the end of the U.S. Championships, which begin Wednesday for senior performers. And she is also expected to compete for gold in Italy after winning one in Boston at the world championships last March, a victory that cemented her comeback as much more serious than sentimental.
“Everything about that performance was just amazing,” said Philip Hersh, an NBC Sports contributor and longtime Olympic writer who covered Liu’s win in Boston. “It was just, it was awe inspiring, and she landed jump after jump. I've seen very few other skaters ever top that, in terms of doing two flawless performances on the biggest stage — other than the Olympics — in your sport.”
Liu followed up her showing in Boston with two more golds — one as part of a team at the 2025 ISU World Team Trophy, and another solo one at the 2025–26 Grand Prix Final in Nagoya.
Since returning to competition, one key difference for Liu has been exerting more control over her career: She has had much more input on her costumes, music and training schedule.
“She hates this term, but we almost call it Alysa 2.0,” says Phillip DiGuglielmo, Liu’s longtime coach who has worked with her before and after her retirement. “It’s like a reboot, in a way. Before, literally, she never disagreed with anything anybody ever said. But now she has complete freedom to chime in and we respect that. So, she exercises her right all the time.”
Liu has gone to great lengths to manage her programs, tinkering with every detail from her music to her costume. According to DiGuglielmo, she went through somewhere close to 15 versions of the music she wanted to skate to at the U.S. championships. The dress she will be debuting Friday wasn’t finalized until she had it sent back to her dressmaker several times for alterations.
What makes Liu special is not only her attention to detail. According to DiGuglielmo, it’s her confidence when the lights are the brightest.
"When an ultra-elite athlete goes out, there's still some brain cells that are telling them, 'OK, this is it. This is my moment. I have to do this,'" DiGuglielmo said. "With Alysa, that doesn’t exist. I always say something is wrong with her brain. She just doesn’t get nervous."
As she’s taken the reins of her career, Liu’s grown better as a skater. She finished sixth overall at the 2022 Olympics, and third at the World Championships that year. Now, she is coming off an international gold and is in contention for one more in Italy. It’s an ascent that couldn’t have happened if she hadn't walked away first.
“It was so rewarding,” Liu says of her mini-retirement. “I was able to give more to the people I loved, because as a skater, I wasn't able to. I was finally able to hang out with my siblings, do stuff with them like a normal family, and attend my friends' birthday parties. It's crazy, I has never done any of that before. I would miss Christmases. I was able to finally celebrate these amazing things in life. And because I was able to give to people, I was given more myself. And so it was just like, I felt so human for the first time.”
That growth ultimately led her back to the ice but, in another first, on her own terms.
“Oh, it’s fully for myself" this time, Liu said. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
