OAKLAND – For Alysa Liu, the journey to becoming a world-class figure skater again didn’t necessarily start on a sheet of ice inside a dimly lit rink. It began on a ski trip near Lake Tahoe in January of last year, when she felt an all-too-familiar rush of adrenaline as she made her way down the slopes.
“You’re cold, your legs are tired, you’re out of breath, and you feel cold wind on your face all the time,” Liu said. “You need grit and willpower to get down the mountain, gliding as well. That felt very much like skating … and I loved it.”
Following a nearly two-year retirement, the 19-year-old Liu, who considers Oakland her home, announced on March 1, 2024, that she was returning to figure skating competition. Along the way, she rediscovered her love for the sport that had been a part of her life since she was a child and in March, became a world champion.
“Honestly,” Liu told Bay Area News Group earlier this week at Oakland Ice Center, “I think I enjoy my life a lot more than before.”
Seven weeks ago in Boston, Liu, with a joyful and powerful performance, became the first American to win the women’s figure skating world championship since Kimmie Meissner captured the title in 2006.
Following months of building up her stamina after a long layoff, Liu, in peak form, brought the house down as she hit seven triple jumps in her free skate and finished with 222.97 points to help beat three-time defending champ Kaori Sakamoto (217.98 points) of Japan.
“It definitely was one of the best performances, I think, in U.S. women’s history,” NBC Sports figure skating analyst Tara Lipinski, the 1997 world champion and 1998 Olympic gold medalist, told this newspaper.
“It was not only technically a brilliant state, but the joy and the freedom and the attack that she skated that program with, it’s so difficult. When you know you have a world gold medal on the line, there’s so much at stake. And she stepped on the ice and was able to tap into that inner athlete and inner performer and just let it all go.”
After her remarkable performance, and a year following her return, Liu received a thunderous standing ovation from the TD Center crowd.
“I was really proud of myself and my team right after I hit my ending pose,” Liu said. “It was bliss.”
Liu was in a different headspace three years ago.
When she retired from competition in April 2022, Liu was already a two-time U.S. national champion. She finished seventh at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in Feb. 2022, and captured bronze at the world championships the following month.
At 16, feeling like she had accomplished her goals and was missing valuable time with her friends and family, she decided to move on.
“I really wasn’t enjoying it,” Liu said. “When I was really young, I did. Then once COVID hit, I realized I also enjoyed, you know, not skating. After that point, I got homesick because I was away from home so much, so I never saw my friends and family that often.”
Liu wanted to live a more normal childhood before she started at UCLA, but that wouldn’t be possible if she continued to dedicate so much time to skating.
“So I decided to quit,” she said. “Also, I didn’t really appreciate the art of (skating). I never picked my own programs, and I didn’t like doing my programs, and there were no new jumps I wanted to try.
“I had gone to the Olympics because that was my only goal. So I did it, and I was like, well, there’s nothing left for me here.”
Liu rediscovered her passion and talent for skating one day at a time. While finishing up her semester at UCLA, she was on the ice only once or twice a week. In mid-June, she began dedicating more time to her craft, slowly working to regain her strength and stamina.
The free skate routine, set to the Donna Summer song, “MacArthur Park,” that she used to win a world title and help the U.S. win the World Team Trophy in Tokyo last month, will be changed as she ramps up toward next season with an eye on February’s Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy.
Liu has more input in shaping her program, allowing her to express herself.
“I’ll be trying tons of new jumps, new combos and whatnot,” Liu said. “We’re going to be doing a lot more spins, new spins, and I’m going to try to make them faster. That’s my goal. I want really fast spins.”
“I think she’s so relaxed and comfortable in this era of her skating career, and she loves taking on the challenge and loves performing,” Lipinski said of Liu. “When you can really find that balance of being competitive but not letting the pressure get to you or overthinking it, it really is the right recipe.”
The Stars on Ice tour continues through next week with stops in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Boston.
The Grand Prix series begins in October and has stops over two months in France, China, Canada, Japan, Lake Placid, N.Y., and Finland before returning to Japan for the Grand Prix Final in December. The U.S. Figure Skating Championships are in January in St. Louis.
Liu’s performances this spring served notice that she should be considered one of the favorites to capture an Olympic medal, perhaps even a gold, something an American hasn’t done since 2002 when Sarah Hughes won in Salt Lake City to follow up Lipinski’s feat.
The competition figures to be tough. Not all of the top skaters were at Worlds in Boston, and there could also be a Russian in the mix.
“But you can never count out the world champion, because essentially, if that were an Olympic year, she’d be an Olympic champion,” Lipinski said. “She is definitely now one of the favorites for that Olympic podium.”
“I had a blast at the Beijing Olympics, but I hear everyone say, ‘Oh, but that’s a COVID Olympics. It’s not anything close to what the real one’s going to be,’” Liu said. “And so I’m anticipating something great.”
