Oakland’s Alysa Liu is the figure skating darling.
NBC Bay Area has followed the now 20-year-old Liu since she was 13 when she became the youngest ever U.S. figure skating champion. The reigning world and U.S. champion now is looking to skate in her second Winter Olympics in Italy after a brief retirement.
From retirement to world championship gold, even she can’t believe what’s happened recently.
“I’m keeping my passion, keeping my focus,” she said. “The last Olympics, Beijing, 100 days I was probably thinking like, ‘Can’t we just like get this over with.’ This time around, I’m really excited.”
Liu hung up her skates after Beijing in 2022. She wasted no time and took advantage of her retirement at 16 years old.
“I was going to concerts which I never could have done before,” she said. “I also got my driver’s license. I did a whole year at college. I went on vacation for the first time. I went skiing. I went snowboarding. I got to do so many different things that I never would have done had I stayed in the sport.”
In 2024, a family ski trip to the mountains had Liu missing her skates and wanting to get back on the ice. She came out of retirement in March 2024. More than a year later, she was on top of the skating world as the first American to win gold at the world championships in nearly two decades.
This time around, Liu is involved in every aspect of her training.
“I’m really excited for my programs,” she said. “I think they’re very me, like costumes, choreography, and just vibe of it. And I’m just really excited to display my art.”
Liu hopes to put that art out to the world in Milan, hoping to get a medal. But she said it’s not the most important thing for her to do. She’s looking forward to what happens after these winter games.
“A lot of people are really nervous because they think of the Olympics as kind of the end, like the end of a movie,” she said. “But for me, I know that’s not the end of a movie, you know what I mean? There’s things I’m looking forward to after Olympics.”