{"id":216973,"date":"2026-03-12T20:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216973\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:49:10","slug":"alysia-liu-is-back-and-the-bay-area-is-ready-to-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/216973\/","title":{"rendered":"Alysia Liu is Back, and the Bay Area is Ready to Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAt the Olympics, you saw a different side of some of the skaters,\u201d said Glenn Martin, the general manager of Oakland Ice Center. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t normally see them smiling and relaxing \u2026 Alysa just brings that out of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her first-place free skate program to an extended version of Donna Summer\u2019s disco cover of MacArthur Park didn\u2019t feature any triple axels, but it got crowds in Milan on their feet, and ended with a triumphant celebration: \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m f\u2013king talking about,\u201d Liu shouted to the cameras as she glided off the ice, beaming.<\/p>\n

Liu also gave a shoutout to Oakland, and the Bay Area celebrated her success<\/a>. Oakland ice cream shop Fentons Creamery started scooping \u201cAlysa\u2019s Gold.\u201d BART gave the \u201crider and local legend\u201d a shoutout on social media and Lee praised her as a \u201chometown hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three weeks later, that joy is still palpable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watched [Alysa\u2019s performance] probably three times in a row,\u201d Cynthia\u2019s daughter, Jennifer, said from Thursday\u2019s rally. She told KQED she and her 5- and 8-year-old daughters teared up during the program. \u201cMy family, my girls, all of us have been really, really inspired and encouraged by what Alysa has done and her story. And so we just want to come out and support her and celebrate her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Memorabilia celebrating Olympic champion Alysa Liu hangs inside the Oakland Ice Center on March 10, 2026, in Oakland. (Gustavo Hernandez\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Also among the crowd was Sam Collister, who brought his two daughters to the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really important for young girls to be able to see a positive role model,\u201d he told KQED. Collister said he hopes his daughters\u2019 takeaway will be that you \u201ccan be a positive influencer in your community.<\/p>\n

\u201cOakland is a city of artists, a city of creators,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

KQED\u2019s Juan Carlos Lara<\/a> contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAt the Olympics, you saw a different side of some of the skaters,\u201d said Glenn Martin, the general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-216973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}