ALYSA LIU HAD NO INTEREST IN WINNING AN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL, BUT SHE WON ANYWAY
Is this the new image of success? Not caring about the decoration but only about the artistry? Liu gave America its first women’s figure-skating title in 24 years, and she wisely took time off in 2022
Her gold medal didn’t matter, she kept saying. Would she remove it from her neck and place it in a trash container? It’s possible Alysa Liu snuffed out the ideal way to win at the Olympics, refusing to bury herself with victory expectations after Ilia Malinin was destroyed by them. She was more impressed before Thursday’s free skate when her coaches toasted her with glasses of champagne, agreeing with her about artistry and downplaying the decoration.
“We did a little pre-celebratory thing, like we learned from her,” Phillip DiGuglielmo said. “I can’t sit here and say she has to win. Saying that she has to win doesn’t jibe with her values. Third place, fourth place — it still would have been an incredible accomplishment. We never actually had a goal of winning. We never said it because it was kind of taboo. For her, it’s all about showing her art.”
Liu’s program was almost perfect. She is the first U.S. woman to win in figure skating in 24 years, and when her presentation was over in Milan, she saw a TV camera and shouted, “That’s what I’m f—ing talking about!” That quickly, sports in our country has a complete badass who takes a healthy look at the metal disk people dream about. She was far more interested in her performance than what it brought her in the end. Imagine a quarterback throwing six scoring passes in the Super Bowl and not caring if he won the game.
Hey, it worked. Ever see an athlete described this way in a story at the Winter Games: “A hero of the alt, punk and emo crowds.” Good for her. She doesn’t conform.
“I don’t need this,” Liu said of the gold, “but what I needed was the stage, and I got that. So it was all good, no matter what happened. I mean, if I fell on every jump, I would still be wearing this dress. So it’s all good.”
She is 20 and wears striped hair — blond, brunette, maybe more colors. If this is what she learned when she quit skating, at 16, maybe kids can reset their lives without a problem. “I really hated skating when I quit. Like, I really didn’t like it,” Liu said. “I didn’t care about competitions. I didn’t care about places. I didn’t care about skaters. I didn’t care about my programs. I just wanted to, like, get away. I wanted nothing to do with that. I hated fame. I hated social media. I didn’t like interviews. Like, I hated all of it.”
She headed to Mt. Everest. She met new people and opted for psychology at UCLA. She decided her hair should look like a tree, adding rings when necessary. “I used to feel like a puppet or a canvas that other people were using,” she said. “Now I do things for myself.”
Her coaches knew of other skaters who quit and never returned. “Nobody walks away and comes back,” DiGuglielmo said. “Rachael Flatt tried. Gracie Gold tried. Lots of people try because they love it — and that’s great. But they’re not successful at it.” Liu finished sixth in Beijing in 2022. She studied her mental health. The result, four years later, is an all-timer.
“I think my story is more important than anything to me, and that’s what I hold dear,” Liu said. “And this journey has been incredible, and my life has just been — I have no complaints and I’m just so grateful for everything.
“I mean, it’s just how my life has gone. Everything in general has led me to this point. What I was feeling was happy and confident.”
The victory, for what it was worth, was her second after winning team gold. Her mate, Amber Glenn, was viewed as a potential winner until she chose to criticize President Trump. She fell in the short program after saying of the LGBTQ+ community, “I hope I can use my platform and voice throughout these Games to help people stay strong during these hard times. A lot of people will say, ‘You’re just an athlete. Stick to your job. Shut up about politics.’ But politics affect us all.” When Liu won, Glenn hugged her by the ice.
“Her story of taking a step back, mental health, I think it really attests to you never know what the journey to success is going to be,” said Glenn, who climbed back to fifth place. “I really hope that can reach the skating community, that it’s OK to take time.”
When Liu’s coaches told her about skaters who quit and failed, she had a quick comeback. “I’m younger than all of them,” she noted.
That said, we will be seeing much of her. The alt, punk and emo crowds are not alone. Maybe she’ll do a commercial and melt the medal.
Why not?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.