Milan, February 19, 2026. Alysa Liu goes into the women's free skate in third place, two points behind Japan's Ami Nakai after the short program. When the scores are in, she is on top: 226.79. Kaori Sakamoto is second, 1.89 back. Nakai takes bronze. Liu is the Olympic champion.
No American woman had won Olympic gold in singles since Sarah Hughes in Salt Lake City in 2002, 24 years earlier. Liu already had a gold from the team event in Milan. Now she had two. She was 20.
Four years before that, she had quit.
Thirteen
She started skating at five in Oakland, California, and by her own account she didn't stop until 16. She was homeschooled her whole life so she could train.
In 2019, at 13, she became the youngest women's champion in U.S. figure skating history. That same year she became the first American woman to land a quad Lutz, in a Junior Grand Prix win. In February 2022 she skated at the Beijing Olympics and finished sixth. A month later she won bronze at the World Championships in France.
Then, in April 2022, at 16, she retired.
The dress-up doll
Looking back, she has said she did not even pick her own programs. Other people chose her music, her routines and her costumes. She felt she had missed a normal childhood and had no say in her own career.
"I was literally just like a dress-up doll."
Alysa Liu, to NBC
A normal life
She moved out of the dorm at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado and took her first real week off. She went on her first vacation, to Mexico with friends and family, collected seashells and went zip-lining. She got her driver's license so she could take her younger siblings to school. She went to birthday parties and celebrated the holidays she had always missed.
She called it a "normal, teenage-girl, older-sister life." It lasted almost two years.
Lake Tahoe
Then, in January 2024, she went skiing at Lake Tahoe. Somewhere on that mountain it hit her: she missed the adrenaline rush of sport. Two months later, in March 2024, she announced she was coming back.
This time it would be on her terms. She chose her own coaches and her own music. She has a say in her costumes and her training schedule. Before the 2026 U.S. Championships, her coach Phillip DiGuglielmo says, she went through somewhere close to 15 versions of her music, and the dress went back to the dressmaker several times. DiGuglielmo has a name for this version of her: "Alysa 2.0."
Boston and Nagoya
A year after the comeback began, on March 28, 2025, at TD Garden in Boston, she won the World Championships. No American woman had won that title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006.
"I have never regretted anything in my life," she said that night.
That December she won the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan. The Olympic season was here, and she was the reigning world champion.
Milan
In February 2026, at the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, she won gold first in the team event. Then came the women's singles. After a short program that left her third, she said she felt super grounded and had connected with her program on another level.
"Whether I beat them or not is not my goal. My goal is just to do my programs and share my story," she said. Two days later she was the Olympic champion.
Asked who she skates for now, her answer was short.
"Oh, it's fully for myself."
Alysa Liu, to NBC
The girl who once felt like a dress-up doll now picks the music, the dress and the coaches. She left to be a teenager. She came back for the rush, and she kept it as her own.
GAMECHANGER™Reporting draws on NBC (January and February 2026), the Associated Press, the International Skating Union, Fox News, Sports Illustrated, NBC Olympics, University of California and UCLA News (February 2026) and NBC New York.
Sources (10)
NBC News: Alysa Liu retired at 16. Now she's back, on her own terms · NBC New York: Alysa Liu, the retired figure skater who came back for gold · NBC Sports Bay Area: American Alysa Liu earns gold medal in women's figure skating · AP via News4JAX: Alysa Liu surges into medal range in Olympic short program · U.S. Figure Skating: Liu floats into third place after women's short program · ISU: Liu comes out of retirement to give USA first women's world title in 19 years · AP via News4JAX: Alysa Liu delivers the US its first women's world title in nearly 2 decades · Fox News: American figure skating star Alysa Liu wins gold at Grand Prix Final · NBC Olympics: Alysa Liu doing things her way in pursuit of a gold medal · Sports Illustrated: Alysa Liu becomes first U.S. woman to land quad Lutz in Junior Grand Prix win