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Alysa Liu never thought she’d figure skate again. When many 16 year olds are getting their driver’s license and going through the many highs and lows of high school, Liu revealed she was retiring from the sport that dominated most of her life.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m calling it quits now,'” Liu told 60 Minutes in an interview before the Olympics began. Liu revealed her retirement in 2022 following a sixth-place finish at the Beijing Games and capturing a bronze medal at the World Championships that year. The northern California native took to Instagram on April 9 to make the announcement, saying, “I honestly never thought I would accomplish as much as I did, I’m so happy. I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone. Now that I’m finally done with my goals in skating, I’m going to be moving on with my life.”

Liu has been skating since the age of 5, and began competing in major competitions at only 10 years old. She racked up as many accolades over a six-year span as some professional athletes whose careers last twice as long. She’s a two-time U.S. Championships figure skating gold medalist, a two-time U.S. Championships silver medalist, and at 13 became the youngest U.S. women’s national champion ever. When she was 14, Liu became the youngest skater ever to win two senior national titles. In 2019, she became the first U.S. female figure skater to land a quadruple jump in an international competition.

Then, seemingly at the height of her career, Liu called it quits.

She traded rink time for quality time. The hours spent training on her craft were replaced with hours spent trained on family and friends. It was an abrupt retirement to those within the figure skating community. But Liu’s decision to retire was something she already got a taste of before, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down everything across the globe, including sports.

“I was like, ‘Wow, this is what a break feels like,'” Liu reported. “And then I was like, ‘I really like not skating.'”

Liu’s rink in Oakland — along with everything else at the height of the pandemic — closed in 2020, allowing her genuine free time. For someone who had been skating every day that could feel a bit abnormal, but Liu wasn’t desperate to get back on the rink.

“Honestly, I was hoping, like the rinks wouldn’t open,” Liu reported. But eventually they did in 2022, and she made the Olympic team and earned a bronze medal at the World Championships. However, Liu’s love for the sport was waning, and as she was thinking about her future, one without figure skating was becoming more of a possibility.

“It was a crucial time in my life,” Liu reported of the decision to retire. “I was 16 and college was coming up. Like, I wanted to do so much. I went to Nepal and I trekked to Everest Base Camp. Me and my friends would do tons of road trips. I was really just livin’ it up. I would say it was my best life.”

The ‘quick hits of dopamine’

There was no point during her hiatus that she missed skating, and Liu did pretty well to insulate herself from even thinking about the sport. She deleted her Instagram account at the time, which for any teenager — even an Olympic athlete — could be a life-altering choice. Without seeing any constant news of the sport, Liu didn’t have a difficult time moving on from it. It wasn’t a topic of conversation around her, so it was truly, out of sight, out of mind.

But as she put more distance between herself and skating, Liu started to get that itch to lace up her skates again. She had no plans of returning to competition, but rather enjoyed just being out on the ice and getting those “quick hits of dopamine” as she calls them. But just like when Michael Jordan and Tom Brady came out of retirement, Liu couldn’t deny the intense feeling of wanting to still compete.

She officially revealed her return to the sport in March 2024 on Instagram. Liu’s announcement came in the form of a hype video that showed snippets of her progression in landing a triple jump from the time she returned to the ice in January 2024 to two months later.

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It was akin to Jordan’s, “I’m back,” moment, but when she returned to skating this time, Liu wanted things to be different.

“I get to pick my own program music,” Liu reported. “I get to help with the creative process of the program. If I feel like I’m skating too much, I’ll back down. If I feel like I’m not skating enough I’ll ramp it up. No one’s gonna starve me or tell me what I can and can’t eat.”

Her coaches agreed to Liu’s terms, and through a more collaborative process, they’ve seen her be a better skater. “For many years she was dropped off at the rink,” reported Liu’s coach Phillip DiGuglielmo. “She was told what to do. Now she comes in, and it is all collaborative.”

It wasn’t an easy return, there was lots of falling and conditioning to get back to where she was, but Liu found joy in the journey. “I love struggling actually,” Liu reported. “It makes me feel alive.”

Lady Gaga and striped bleached hair

The struggle didn’t last for long, though, as Liu did the unthinkable just a year after returning to the sport. At the 2025 World Championships, she became the first U.S. woman to win a world title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006. Winning gold at the World Championships was not on Liu’s bingo card, but her comeback has been full of surprises.

Since Liu’s returned, you can see more creative expression from her. She’s choosing more edgy music than you’d expect from a typical ice skating program, like a medley of Lady Gaga songs that her free skate program was set to, which won silver at the U.S. figure skating championships on Jan. 11. During that competition, Liu broke the record for the highest U.S. national women’s short program score of 81.11. It would’ve likely meant gold for Liu, but teammate Amber Glenn delivered a short program score of 83.05, which helped her claim the title.

It’s not just her music where you’ll see self expression from Liu. Her signature look are the bleached stripes in her hair. “I do this every year,” Liu reported. “I add a stripe, so it’s going to be like this for a year. Then next year wintertime, like end of December, I do another ring,”

It’s all part of a more authentic version of Liu, one who still likes the challenge the sport brings, but has made her own tweaks to not feel so boxed in. Liu does not appear to be defined by winning as she hopes to just entertain the crowd and “hype people up” with her performance.

Still, she is considered a contender to take home top prize Thursday at the conclusion of the two-day competition, which begins with the short program at 12:45 p.m. Tuesday. And if she does win gold, Liu will become the first American woman to win an Olympic figure skating singles title in 24 years. No matter what, she won’t be coming home empty-handed after the United States got to the top of the podium in the team event last week.

Though it’s atypical for a figure skater to return to peak levels after taking two years off, especially returning at 20 years old, Liu has proven she doesn’t fit that mold. Ever since she was breaking records as a pre-teen, Liu has made defying the odds — and convention — routine for her. So why would a gold medal for her individual effort be out of the question?