For the first time in a generation, Team USA has a gold-medal winner in individual women’s figure skating.
In doing so, she became the first U.S. figure skater to win a women’s individual gold medal in figure skating since Sarah Hughes did it in 2002.
But it almost didn’t happen.
Liu retired from competition in 2022 – three years after becoming the youngest-ever U.S. figure skating champion.
Here’s what to know about her retirement and her triumphant comeback:
Why did Alysia Liu retire?
Liu, 20, said in an Instagram post in 2022 that she was satisfied with her career. At that time, she’d just won a bronze medal at the 2022 Figure Skating World Championships in Montpellier, France. She became the first U.S. woman to do that in six years.
“I’m here to announce that i am retiring from skating,” she wrote in the caption of her Instagram post. “I started skating when i was 5 so that’s about 11 years on the ice and it’s been an insane 11 years. a lot of good and a lot of bad. … i feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone. now that i’m finally done with my goals in skating i’m going to be moving on with my life.”
“I was so into skating that I really didn’t do much else,” she said. “Skating takes up your whole life, almost. I don’t know if other people kind of feel the same when they look back at certain parts of their life, but for me, it’s definitely a blur, because it kind of meshes together, you know — going to the rink, going home, competing.’
She enrolled at UCLA in 2023 and decided to take time off from the sport she’d be a phenom in since her early teens.
But she couldn’t stay away forever.
Alysa Liu’s comeback
Liu again took to her Instagram page on March 1, 2024 to make a major announcement teasing her return to the ice. A video of her doing training jumps ended with text reading ‘this 2024-25 season’ and ‘back on the ice,’ signaling her return to the sport.
She got back into her training routine and won gold at the 2025 Figure Skating World Championships in Boston. She took silver in the singles event of the U.S. Championships in both 2025 and 2026 and made Team USA.
In the Olympics once again, she took home the biggest medal of all.