If she wasn’t already, Alysa Liu became a household name Thursday at the 2026 Winter Games.
Liu won the gold medal in women’s figure skating, becoming the first American woman to stand atop the podium since 2002. She was in third place after the short program, and skated a nearly perfect routine to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” to notch a total score of 226.79 and a gold medal.
ROSENBERG: Gold Hair, Gold Dress, Gold Medal: Alysa Liu Radiates Joy As Olympic Champion
But Liu’s figure skating journey wasn’t the typical ride of an Olympic gold medalist. After a historic start to her career as a teenager, she hung up the skates for two years—only to rediscover them again, just in time.
Why did Alysa Liu retire from figure skating?
In April 2022, at the age of 16, Liu shocked the figure skating world by announcing her retirement.
"i started skating when i was 5 so that’s about 11 years on the ice and it’s been an insane 11 years," she wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post. "i honestly never thought i would’ve accomplished as much as i did LMAOO i’m so happy. i feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone."
At the time, Liu had taken the skating world by storm, winning a bronze medal at the 2022 world championships in France—the first American woman to medal in six years. At 13, she became the youngest athlete to become the U.S. women’s figure skating champion and was the first American woman to land a quadruple jump. She won another national championship title in 2020 and finished seventh at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
So, yes, her trophy case was stuffed. But she wanted something different.
“i’m probably just gonna spend all my spare time with my family and friends; and i’m also going to study,” Liu wrote in her Instagram post.
Why did Alysa Liu return to figure skating?
After two years away, Liu announced plans to return to figure skating in March 2024 and competed at the 2024 CS Budapest Trophy later that year in October—her first event since ‘22.
Ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Liu spoke with Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein about her choice to return to the ice. Here’s what Apstein wrote:
[Liu] loved life after skating, visiting Los Angeles cafés with friends who didn’t know how to pronounce Salchow, dabbling in volleyball and tennis, hiking to the base camp of Mount Everest. But one day in early 2024, she went skiing with those friends and felt the first rush of adrenaline since putting away her skates. Then she took a trip to a rink. (She realized that at some point in the intervening two years she had lost her skates; eventually they turned up.) She tried a double Axel and landed it. Her brain started to whir.
She called her old coach, Phillip DiGuglielmo, to tell him she was ready to stage a comeback. “Why would you do this to yourself?” he scoffed. After two hours of negotiation—and a bottle of California red for DiGuglielmo—he got on board.
APSTEIN: Alysa Liu’s Return Came on Her Terms, Just in Time for a Shot at Olympic Gold
Liu ended up winning six of her first 12 events back on the ice. And now, less than four years after announcing her retirement, Liu stands atop the podium as an Olympic gold medalist.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Alysa Liu Retired From Figure Skating and Came Back to Win Olympic Gold.
