How different that is than four years ago, when the old Alysa Liu might have preferred to skate with the lights off at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when the sport brought darkness rather than joy to her life, gave her pain rather than pleasure.
It was all so overwhelming that only the private knowledge that she would soon be retiring at age 16 allowed her to muddle through the Olympics and the subsequent World Championships. Liu had skated more than respectably in Beijing, then won a bronze at worlds, but she couldn’t wait to throw her skates into the closet where they would gather rust for more than a year.
“I am very happy to be here compared to last time, which was like, ‘Let’s just get it over,’” she said. “This time feels so completely different. I know who I am as a person now.”
More importantly, she has become her own person, seeking and acquiring independence, allowing her to skate on her own terms rather than those set by her father, giving her the agency in her career that had been missing.
Thus, the raccoon-striped hair inspired by tree rings, the frenulum-piercing in her mouth, the stream-of-Alysa answers to questions, the insistence on being thought of more as an artist than a medal-seeking competitor, the short program to a darkly emotive Laufey song, “Promise,” that Liu has made her signature.