D’Arcy MaineMultiple AuthorsFeb 17, 2026, 07:51 AM ET
She had just taken over first place at the U.S. national championships in January. “Damn, that’s good, right?” she remarked to her coaches, showing off her multicolored, tree ring-inspired hair and shiny frenulum piercing as she smiled on the big screen to the fans. There was just one more competitor to go. An arena official made sure Liu would have a clear path to get backstage and away from the cameras but she stopped after just a few feet.
Instead of continuing to walk through the black curtain and out of the watchful eyes of fans and reporters, Liu posted up directly in front of the media row next to the ice. For the next four minutes, Liu stood, clapped and cheered loudly as Amber Glenn thrilled the crowd. By the end of the program, Liu had recruited Isabeau Levito, who was currently in second place, to join her and the two roared in ovation as Glenn skated off the ice.
During the next few moments, as Glenn did an interview for those in the arena and while her score was announced to the crowd, Liu couldn’t stop smiling.
Glenn had won the competition in dominant fashion to claim her third consecutive national title, and Liu, and Levito, rushed to join her in an embrace. “You deserve this,” Liu said to Glenn before the three hugged again and excitedly and collectively decided they all deserved it.
Liu, the reigning world champion, finished in second place at the national championships, and by the end of the weekend, she had officially been named to the U.S. team. Milan marks her second appearance at the Olympics, and she could very well be the one to reverse the country’s 20-year medal drought among women. But this time around, everything is different. And this time, Liu, 20, has done everything unequivocally and authentically her way.
“I had no art to show before. People were making me skate to this [music], putting me in that dress, I had no control,” Liu told ESPN in the fall. “I didn’t even know who was making the decisions and I didn’t want to be there anyways. … The vibes are so different now. The way I was being treated before is a lot different than I am now.
“I have such a different team and I treat myself differently. I’m older and I’ve learned so many lessons. I’m so much better at protecting my peace and knowing why I do the things I do.”
Wagner, who retired from the sport in 2019 and is working for NBC as a commentator during the Olympics, remembers the first time she saw Liu.
She’s not entirely sure how old Liu was at the time or even what division she was competing in, but Wagner was there to support a young skater she trained with and it proved to be a memorable experience.
“I had never seen a kid skate so bad at a competition,” Wagner said of Liu. “She was just devastated. It was really the worst skate of her life.”
But despite the stumbles — and there were quite a few stumbles — Wagner saw something in Liu that day. She turned to her friend Adam Rippon, a 2018 Olympian and Wagner’s current co-host on “The Runthrough” podcast, and told him Liu was going to be special. She then went and told Liu the same thing.
“I said to her, ‘Hey, this was a really rough skate, but it doesn’t define you. I can’t wait to see you on the big stage one day. I know you’re going to be there,'” Wagner recalled.
At 12, she was competing at the 2018 U.S. junior national championships, as the youngest competitor in the field. She won. With an astounding seven triple flips in her free skate, all in the second half of her program for a scoring bonus, there was an 18-point deficit between her and the rest of the field at the event’s conclusion. It was a star-making performance.
Liu was too young to compete at the world junior championships, but that simply gave her more time to train. By the end of the year, she landed the triple axel in competition for the first time at the Asian Open Trophy — becoming the youngest woman in history to do so and just the fourth American. It wasn’t long before she debuted a quadruple jump in competition, a feat that remains rare among women.
She won her first senior national title as a 13-year-old in 2019 — the youngest U.S. women’s national champion in history. The following year she became the youngest woman to win her second national championship crown.
“The social aspect was immediately gone and I’m a very social person,” Liu said of that time. “I wasn’t skating with my friends anymore. Connection is such an important thing to me, in practice and even in competitions. I want to connect with people.”
When competitions returned, Liu, who had experienced a substantial growth spurt, struggled with her more difficult jumps. She finished in fourth place at the national championships.
During the 2021-2022 season, the first year she was eligible to compete at the senior level internationally, she was in third place after the short program at the U.S. championships when a positive COVID-19 test forced her to withdraw before the free skate. Still, she was named to the Olympic team because of her previous results.
At the Games, she finished in sixth place (following the disqualification of Kamila Valieva) and was the highest-finishing American woman in the event. Liu told reporters how excited she was to have completed “two clean programs” and shared how much fun the experience was. Just over a month later, she finished in third place at the 2022 world championships.
She went on to say she would be spending her free time with her friends and family and concluded the post with a simple sendoff. “I’m really glad I skated.”
WHILE LIU’S CHILDHOOD had been a uniquely prodigious existence, devoid of most typical experiences, her next chapter was, well, kind of normal.
Like many teenagers, she hung out with her friends and her four younger siblings, went to concerts, got her driver’s license and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. She enrolled at UCLA and began studying psychology. Having rarely had the chance to go on vacation because of her demanding training schedule, Liu jumped at the opportunity to go on a trek to Mount Everest Base Camp in May 2023 with friends.
It remains the most cherished memory of her life in self-imposed skating exile. She had no phone service — something that was initially jarring for a professed “addict” — for weeks and it allowed her to fully connect with those around her.
“It was such a beautiful experience,” she said. “It felt like such girlhood, because we were with each other 24/7. We had to pee squatting behind rocks together. We were 17, we were tired, we were cold a lot of the trip, but it was almost spiritual, I guess.
“We were really having a lot of deep conversations, trying to understand each other, trying to understand life in general. I think that experience honestly helped me a lot.”
While Liu had always been able to identify as a figure skater, for the first time, she was starting to know who she was as a person, too. “I couldn’t know myself if I only ever did one thing,” she said.
The freedom away from the ice allowed her to get in touch with her creative side and discover passions like dancing, music and fashion. But she also remembered how much she needed to move her body and find a way to release her boundless energy. A family ski trip made her realize exactly where she needed to be.
“I love this feeling,” Liu remembered while gliding down the trail. “I need to train and be tired again. And the mountains are really far away and it’s a day trip. That’s too much work. The rink is right there. And if skiing feels just like skating, why don’t I just skate? I need to not be so stubborn.”
On Jan. 5, 2024, Liu went back to the ice, during a public session. She was amazed at how naturally everything seemed to come back to her, including a double axel and triple salchow. Two weeks later, she was back again. She quickly fell in love with skating all over again. Or maybe for the first time really. She began to see it as an art form, a way of creative expression — in a way she never had been able to previously.
But if she was going to return to competition, everything had to be different. Everything had to come from her.
Her dad had been heavily involved in her first iteration and had invested a lot emotionally and financially in her career, but she knew he would have to take a back seat in order for Alysa 2.0 to be successful. (When asked in a recent interview with “60 Minutes” if he was hurt by her decision to exclude him in her comeback, Arthur Liu said, “A little bit. It’s like I brought you up to two U.S. national titles.”)
Liu reached out to Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali, whom she had previously worked with, to see if they would coach her again. No one had ever successfully achieved such a comeback, and DiGuglielmo was pragmatic in his reaction and response. Not to mention, he had been fired by Arthur previously.
Eventually, DiGuglielmo and Scali relented and officially were on board. Liu, still just 18, continued to make it known that she would be the final decision-maker when it came to her career. If she needed to take a day off, she would. She could eat what she wanted when she wanted. She would have a say in her choreography, music and costumes. She was in charge.
“I’m so intentional now,” Liu said. “I’m so grounded. Everything I do has a reason for why I do it.”
Liu was not deterred by any of it. She joyfully announced she was back in an Instagram post on March 1, 2024 — less than two months since her first time back in the rink. At the end of a video containing training footage, there was a simple message: “This 2024-2025 season, back on the ice.”
At the world championships in March — just one year after officially announcing her return — Liu let the world know she was truly back. Cartwheeling onto the ice while being announced ahead of warmups and with a bouncy and youthful shaggy ponytail, Liu skated two nearly flawless programs, winning both the short program and the free skate. She became the first American woman to win the world title since 2006.