By Gladys Koh (26A01B)

Alysa smiles as she glides across the ice, and already, something feels different. 

From the first note, her performance brims with joy. Skating to the vibrant, disco beat of Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park Suite”, Alysa casts her hands in the air, surrendering to the music’s rhythm and flow. Every trail of her arm, every spin, every leap carries her above the world’s greatest stage. Alysa quickly becomes emotion unbound. And as the music builds into a sprightly, anthemic crescendo, she hurls herself into a triple loop. 

It is clean. 

The crowd erupts. 

Alysa grins. 

Her arms fling outward in unabashed theatrical flair. Skating backwards now, hands perched on her hips, her energy is visceral. So alive, so lovely to watch.

But the music is shifting again. The program turns punchy and bold—and Alysa responds by thrusting both arms upwards in playful triumph. She kicks her leg back sharply to the beat. She punctuates the rhythm with exaggerated bows to the audience. Then, she drops, sliding across the ice on both knees, hands atop her head in dramatic showbiz flourish. In a sport so often bound by tension and the suffocating pressure to execute flawlessly, Alysa’s performance is a breath of fresh air. Even in her most difficult elements, she is fearless. It is so utterly human, it is impossible not to smile watching her. 

Suddenly, Alysa explodes into a soaring layback spin on centre stage. A rapid flurry of spins follows. She reaches towards the skies as though catching the music itself, drawing it to her heart before flinging it back into the rink. Her back arches even further, blade pulled high above her head. Seamlessly, she transitions into a beautiful Biellmann line. 

Alysa’s performance is a brilliantly embodied interpretation of the song—jazzy, effusive, joyfully disjunct from the sport’s traditional markers of refinement and porcelain grace. Yet, it remains a beautiful melding of classic skating technique and contemporary flair. And through it all, she smiles. 

At the finish, breathless and still grinning, Alysa casually flicks her hair back. Completely effortless. The crowd goes wild. 

“This is Olympic Winter Games like you’ve never seen them before” 

NBC Commentator, Tara Lipinski

Indeed, Alysa Liu’s story is an unorthodox one. Four years earlier, she had left all this behind. After competing in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Alysa stepped away from the sport. She retired at sixteen, having fallen out of love with skating. A child prodigy, much of her life had been dictated by others—what music she would skate to, what food she could or could not eat, when to train, and for how long.

“There were so many days where I would show up to the rink and just start uncontrollably crying. I felt a feeling of dread all the time”

Alysa

Alysa did not want any of it anymore. So she walked away from all of it. In the years that followed, she explored all the world had to offer. She enrolled at UCLA. She spent time with her friends and family. She went on vacation for the first time, and on many more afterwards. She skied, snowboarded—things she never could have done had she stayed in the sport. Slowly, Alysa began to discover herself, her passions and her calling in life beyond the rink. 

But during a skiing trip in 2024, something shifted. Alysa felt a familiar surge of adrenaline within her bones. The realisation was immediate—she missed competitive skating. Suddenly, she saw figure skating in a new light. And in a discipline where retirement is often final and comebacks are rare, Alysa made an almost unheard-of decision. 

She decided to return. 

But this time it would be different. It would be on her own terms. Now, she would be involved in the creative process of her program. She chose her own diet. She chose her skating hours. 

And in 2026, when Alysa stepped onto Milano-Cortina Olympic ice once more, she felt stronger. With a performance reclaiming freedom and spirit, she clinched individual gold, becoming the first American woman to claim this Olympic title in 24 years.

Yet, just four years prior, at the 2022 Olympics, the rink had told a completely different story. Cameras closed in on a fifteen year old girl, Russian star Kamila Valieva, the Olympic favourite, who had just tested positive for doping. The scenes that followed were a blur of outrage and media scrutiny. Buried under cruel revile, her success questioned, Kamila retreated behind her Airpods, as if it would drown out the noise. 

But the mind cannot stifle everything.

Days later, Kamila performed the worst free skate of her young career, marked by fall after fall. The moment the music faded to nothing, the golden girl broke from her ending pose. Her hands were quick to cover her grief-stricken face.

“Why did you stop fighting?” was all her coach, Eteri Tutberidze, said to her. 

When Kamila realised she would not podium, she hunched over, sobbing and heaving into her coach’s arms. What the world saw then was no mature, composed champion. Instead, it was that of a lost, scared girl, and her devastating fall from grace.

But the ordeal did not end there. Behind Kamila stood another uncontrollably shaking, screaming figure. Heavy, dark mascara ran down her cheeks, smearing her features into an inconsolate mess. 

“I hate this sport”, “I hate this sport”, Olympic silver medalist Alexandra Trusova choked out, over and over again. She stumbled to hide behind a curtain, but it was to no avail—live streaming cameras continued to follow her. 

Meanwhile, in the green room, the newly crowned Olympic Champion, Anna Shcherbakova sat in solitude. Eyes hollow, she clutched her stuffed toy—nobody congratulated her. She could hear the debacle of screams and sobs happening only a few feet away. Seventeen years old and utterly alone in victory, Anna did not smile. 

Later, she would describe the moment as one of “devastation and burnout”. 

And so, figure skating in the 2022 Beijing Olympics ended in dissolution. The culmination of years of strenuous training, a doping scandal that eclipsed the sport itself, and the insurmountable weight of the world on their shoulders converged in a single, harrowing night. 

None of the girls would compete on Olympic ice again.

Throughout the years, the previous students of Tutberidze, Russia’s figure skater coach, have risen and faded with mechanical precision. Just like clockwork, they peaked on the Olympic stage, only to retire soon after, citing life-altering injuries. And just like clockwork, a new batch of prodigies would rise to take their place, burning brightly and briefly, before they too would retire before they turned twenty. Therein lies the ruthlessness in the system. Driven towards victory from infancy, the young female skaters have known only a life meticulously choreographed by others—strict, regimented diets, endless hours on the ice, bodies broken again and again—all for a taste of ephemeral glory. 

But on 17 February 2022, what the world witnessed was neither dominance nor triumph. 

Instead, years of utter exhaustion and psychological weight collapsed in real time. The girls, once hailed as untouchable, suddenly looked heartbreakingly human. They faltered. They wept. The machine that had produced champion after champion began to visibly crack.  And in that fracture, laid bare for all the world to witness, was the cost of perfection.

But just four years later, Alysa rewrites this narrative. 

In retrospect, nothing about her fits the mold. 

Not the coloured streaks in her hair, nor the joy that spills freely from her.  

Least of all, her unconventional victory.

In a sport long shadowed by scandal, exhaustion and heartbreak, Alysa’s triumphance feels almost revolutionary. For years, figure skating had been shaped by urgency and sacrifice: extreme diets in pursuit of quads—the most technically difficult jumps—and the pervasive belief that a skater declines upon reaching puberty. Like many elite sports, success often came at the expense of one’s self. 

But Alysa did not conform. Instead, her victory now glows in defiance, a moment that could mark the beginning of upending a system long thought immutable. In choosing her own path, Alysa redefined the path to success.

“The courage of coming back and be whoever she is and whatever she wants to be, on her own terms, in a wonderfully supportive atmosphere with her coaches”

NBC commentators

U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu strikes gold

Alysa’s return to the ice is a timely reminder of unparalleled passion and humanity in motion, for so long thought to have been lost to the beloved sport. Emancipating herself from the very same conditions confining other elite athletes, she proves that sport can be freeing and full of heart. At this moment, albeit brief, figure skating is no longer a crucible of strain and desolation. 

It is alive. It is joyous. It is human. 

Alysa’s victory does not erase the past, nor does it undo the years of strain endured by those before her. But it offers another way forward. One where excellence and humanity are no longer at odds. 

And in doing so, Alysa reminds us that that the courage to reclaim joy is, perhaps, the most daring victory of all.