With her recent Olympic win, Alysa Liu, a 20-year-old American figure skater, has introduced a completely new perspective on athletic success with her serene, passionate performance on the Italian rink. Her gold-winning skate was refreshing in a lighthearted, but almost absurd way. Liu contrasted the competitive, intense nature of Olympic athletes with an enlivening skate, with a smile on her face the entire time.
“What I like to share about myself is my story, my art, and my creative process. I guess messing up doesn’t take away from that. It’s still something, it’s still a story. A bad story is still a story, and I think that’s beautiful. There’s no way to lose,” Liu said in an interview with NBC News.
Liu’s skate was especially meaningful because it was her comeback from retiring after competing in the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. The majority of Alysa Liu’s early skating career was spent being put under immense
pressure, and she began skating at just five years old. When her father, Arthur Liu, noticed her talent, he was quick to capitalize on it and put her through extensive training. Alysa achieved great success, even becoming the youngest U.S. women’s figure skating champion at 13, but behind the scenes, she battled with her mental health. In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, Liu described skating as a child as “a responsibility or a burden, even.”
After announcing her retirement from skating in April 2022, Liu spent her time living like a normal teenager and connecting with her friends and family. Two years later, Alysa took a ski trip to the mountains with her friends and felt the familiar buzz of adrenaline that she had been missing. Soon after, she felt inspired to visit a skating rink once more and attempted a triple axel and landed it.
It was that moment that Alysa realized that she needed to get back on the ice.
Alysa came back, but on her own terms, explaining to Cosmopolitan that if her coaches tried to change her in any way, she would quit.
“No one tells me what I’m gonna wear. No one tells me how my hair is gonna be. No one’s gonna try to change me.”
Liu not only changed her rules, but also her mindset. What used to cause stress and feel like a burden was now her passion. It was that passion that later won her gold.
Azra Ozgun, a senior at Wayne Hills, is an athlete and figure skater, and a huge admirer of Alysa Liu. Specifically, Azra admires how Alysa truly “loves what she does” and appreciates her energetic personality that
“peeks through while she’s performing.” Azra noted that “she’s not there to compete, she’s genuinely there to perform,” which she expresses in her skating.
Alysa’s attitude on the ice is inspiring to Azra as an athlete. “Sports are very serious,” she said. “I need to remember Alysa’s words and her mindset and apply that to my life. I think it will do wonders for me if I take one step at a time and enjoy the process instead of the end goal”.
Ultimately, Alysa’s story is an inspirational lesson to all athletes. Despite intense training in her early career, Alysa only found success when she put her mental health first and realigned her priorities. So, after returning to the ice, she found that her mindset was the golden touch all along.
