Figure skater Alysa Liu, 16, will be competing at the 2022 Winter Games, and fans are expecting big things—maybe even gold!—in Beijing. Liu has been skating since she was five years
old and is the youngest woman ever to win a U.S. national Figure Skating Championship. She snagged that top prize when she was just 13 years old. At the age of 12, Liu also became the youngest skater in history (and reportedly just the third American woman ever) to land a triple axel (an edge jump that is extremely difficult) while performing in an international competition.
Here’s everything you need to know about Liu—and how to watch her compete—as you cheer her on at her first-ever Olympics.
Where is Alysa Liu from?
Liu hails from Richmond, CA. According to her U.S. Figure Skating Fan Zone page, Liu has two cats named Kathie and Cranberry and is an active member of Youth Court in Oakland, helping underage children with a criminal record get back on track.
She began skating when she was just five years old. Her first coach was former figure skater Laura Lipetsky, who previously worked alongside other greats like Michelle Kwan. In November 2021, NBC Sports reported that Liu left her coaches, Massimo Scali and Jeremy Abbott, and traveled to Colorado Springs to work with trainers Christy Krall, Drew Meekins, and Viktor Pfeifer. “I felt Alysa needed more intensity in her training and the coaches and I were not on the same page as to how the training should be,” her father, Arthur Liu, told NBC Sports at the time.
Has Liu won any figure skating medals?
When Liu made her junior international competitive debut in 2019, she became the first female figure skater in history to land a triple axel and a quadruple jump in the same program. That same year, at 13, she became the youngest woman in the U.S. to win a national senior title. In 2020, Liu won a second championship and became the youngest person to win two senior national titles by the time she turned 14. She was a favorite to win gold at the 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships but withdrew from the competition after testing positive for COVID-19.
What have other figure skaters said about Liu's talent?
In an interview withBusiness Insider, retired figure skater and Olympic bronze medalist Adam Rippon compared Liu to Simone Biles, who’s often considered the greatest gymnast of all time. “Alysa does things so easily, but if you’re an average viewer, you almost don’t appreciate how difficult and revolutionary the program that she’s putting out is,” he said.
How can you watch Liu compete at the Olympics?
When Liu laces up her skates in Beijing, she will join Team USA’s two other women’s singles skaters, Mariah Bell and Karen Chen. The full figure skating schedule can be found here.