When Alysa Liu posted on Instagram in April 2022 that she was retiring from figure skating at age 16, the announcement shocked everyone except her. She’d been planning her exit for over a year, quietly counting down the days until she could finally walk away from the sport that had consumed her entire childhood. “I left the sport completely,” she admitted later. “Like I wouldn’t step in the rink. Honestly, I was low-key traumatized.”
Three years later, in March 2025, she stood on the podium in Boston as the World Champion—the first American woman to win that title in 19 years. Her coach Phillip DiGuglielmo had tried desperately to talk her out of returning during a two-hour Zoom call that required “a lot of glasses of wine.” Now he watched her make history all over again, this time on her own terms.
This is the story of how quitting became Alysa Liu’s greatest victory.
Early Life
 Alysa was Born August 8, 2005, in Clovis, California, Alysa grew up in Richmond in the Bay Area with her father Arthur Liu—an attorney and Chinese immigrant who fled his homeland after participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Arthur raised five children largely as a single father: Alysa, her sister Selina, and triplets Julia, Justin, and Jaylin (also listed as Joshua in some sources).
According to detailed local reporting from The Oaklandside, Alysa trained at Oakland Ice Center, where she spent countless hours perfecting jumps that would eventually make her famous. She started skating at five years old, drawn to the adrenaline rush of gliding across ice.
By age 12, she became the youngest American woman to land a triple Axel in international competition at the 2018 Asian Open. By 13, she made history as the youngest U.S. National Champion ever, landing three triple Axels in one program at the 2019 Championships. At 14, she won again, setting a national record with 235.52 points and becoming the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple Lutz jump in competition.
The achievements kept piling up faster than she could process them. At 16, she competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, finishing seventh, then won bronze at the World Championships in France. To everyone watching, she was living the dream.
The Retirement Nobody Understood
Two months after Worlds, Alysa posted her retirement announcement and disabled her social media accounts. “I honestly never thought I would’ve accomplished as much as I did. I’m so happy. I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone.”
But those words hid deeper truth. As she revealed in later interviews covered by NBC News, she had actually hated skating by that point. “I started when I was 5 and I basically didn’t stop until 16, and I was homeschooled my whole life,” she explained. She’d never been to regular school. Never hung out with friends after class. Never experienced normal teenage life.
Her coach understood what others didn’t. “She felt she had kept up her side of the bargain with her father and the skating community,” DiGuglielmo said. She’d achieved what everyone expected—Olympic appearance, world medal, national titles. Now she wanted out.
She put her skates in a closet and didn’t look back.
Two Years of Actually Living
From 2022 to 2024, Alysa made up for lost time. She graduated high school. She hung out with friends in Oakland. She traveled to Nepal and spent 17 days trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp at over 17,000 feet. She enrolled at UCLA in fall 2023, finally experiencing college life as a regular student.
She picked up skiing, which reminded her of skating because of the cold air on her skin but came without the pressure, the judges, or the expectations. She explored photography, music, fashion, and art. She got to know herself outside the identity of “figure skater.”
“I found what I like and what I didn’t like,” she said. “Really got to know myself, because when I had skating, I didn’t really know myself. I couldn’t know myself. I only ever did one thing.”
One day in 2024, she went to a rink with a friend. Just for fun. And something unexpected happened—she didn’t hate it. She actually enjoyed skating again when it wasn’t for competitions or scores or anyone’s expectations but her own.
The Comeback That Started With “Please Don’t”
She called her coach Phillip DiGuglielmo, who’d trained her since she was five. She wanted to come back.
“I said, ‘Please don’t.’ I really did,” DiGuglielmo recalled. “I said, ‘Please don’t. Respect your legacy as an Olympic bronze medalist.'”
They talked for two hours on Zoom while DiGuglielmo drank wine and Alysa systematically countered every objection. She was older now and training would be harder? She’d only be 21 at the next Olympics. She’d lost training time? Her jumps were still there. She might not succeed? She didn’t care—she was skating for herself now, not for results.
She made one thing crystal clear: this comeback would be on her terms. She would choose her music. Design her costumes. Control her training schedule. She wasn’t returning to fulfill anyone else’s expectations.
DiGuglielmo eventually agreed, and they resumed training in Oakland. Just seven months later, she won the 2025 World Championships.
Alysa 2.0: The Visual Transformation
The first thing people notice about “Alysa 2.0” is how different she looks. Gone are the delicate ballerina dresses and tight buns. In their place: bold, asymmetrical costumes, dark eyeliner, and three horizontal blonde stripes dyed into her brown hair like tree rings—one added each year since 2023.
She even did a piercing herself on the inside of her upper lip, a detail that perfectly captures her new rebellious authenticity.
“I want to be seen more because I like what I have going on,” she said. “I like what I’m doing.”
At the 2025 U.S. Championships in Wichita, Kansas, she skated her short program to “Promise” by Laufey—a song about sudden goodbyes, failed promises, and inevitable reunion. She chose it herself. Her father Arthur, who’d previously controlled everything from hiring coaches to selecting music, had no input.
The crowd gave her a standing ovation. She doubled over in tears, overwhelmed by emotion. She finished second to Amber Glenn by just 1.46 points.
Making History Again in Boston
At the 2025 World Championships in Boston’s TD Garden, Alysa entered as an underdog. She’d been back less than a year. Nobody expected her to win against three-time defending champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.
She scored 74.58 in the short program, taking the lead. Then she delivered what Olympic writer Philip Hersh called one of the most flawless performances he’d ever witnessed. “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.”
She won gold, dethroning Sakamoto and ending America’s 19-year drought since Kimmie Meissner’s 2006 victory.
“I honestly didn’t know if I would medal or not,” she said afterward, genuinely shocked. “I didn’t really have any expectations for myself.”
On Her Way Back to the Olympics
Alysa won the 2025-26 Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan, then earned a spot on Team USA for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics. She’s now a gold medal favorite, competing in both the individual event and the team competition where the U.S. is favored to win.
But this time feels completely different. “I don’t think anything is going to be hard about the Olympics,” she said. “What is there to lose? Every second you are there, you are gaining something. I can’t think of anything that I would find stressful or anything that could bring me down.”
Her training schedule is lighter now—about an hour in the morning at Oakland Ice Center, sometimes as the only person on the ice. She runs errands, hangs with friends, and took time off from UCLA to prepare for the Games but hopes to return before her friends graduate.
She listens to Charli XCX, Mitski, SZA, and Tyler the Creator while skating. She goes through 15 versions of music before choosing. She sends costumes back multiple times for alterations. She’s particular about every detail because now, finally, they’re her details.
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