Who is Alysa Liu? The Gen Z Figure Skater Who Won Gold at the Winter Olympics

She’s an icon, she’s a legend and she is the moment ⛸️

Ice-based sports (see figure-skating and ice-hockey) are very much having a moment rn (see Icebreaker and Heated Rivalry).

We can predict there will be more movies and TV show biopics based on different ice-skating or ice hockey players to come in the next few years.

One of those figures who has emerged from the Winter Olympics fun, has been Alysa Liu.

The 20-year-old, Gen Z figure skater recently won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

And the most surprising part is she had retired from figure skating in 2022 only to return to professional figure skating in 2024, win a World Championship and now an Olympic Gold.

Who is Alysa Liu?

She was born in California and began skating at five years old and she had begun competing at just seven years old.

Her father came to the United States through Operation Yellowbird, an initiative to help Chinese dissidents who participated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Despite being at the height of her career, after the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 she decided to retire.

She told NBC Sports, “There were many, many times when I didn’t enjoy it.”

After retiring she travelled and wanted to do more normal things including completing a 17-day trip in Nepal to trek Mount Everest Base Camp.

A comeback era.

After deciding to come back to sport professionally in 2024, she decided she wanted to do it on her terms.

She wanted to pick her music, her costumes and she was going to decide how much practice she did or didn’t do.

And it shows.

She’s the only skater with an iconic halo hairstyle and a smiley piercing (which she did herself!)

“I hope that with all this attention I can at least raise awareness about mental health in sports,” Liu told reporters after her win.

How did she win?

We’re no experts in the figure skating world, but it was clear what won Alysa the gold in figure skating was her free skate to MacArthur Park by Donna Summer.

Figure skating has always been perceived as the pinnacle of being demure and restrained. Think of the comparisons between Nancy Mulligan and Tonya Harding.

But Alysa very much disrupts this narrative and it’s, in our opinion, what sets her apart from the rest.

Watching her free skate, her performance is amplified by how loose and easygoing she looks on the ice – despite competing at the Olympic Games.

It’s clear she skates with an ease she might not have known before her self-imposed exile.

What inspiration can we take from Alysa?

We like to say never give up.

But Alysa is a huge example of how taking a break from your dreams and passions can actually help set you apart from the rest.

It’s the ultimate comeback story.

She stepped away, came back and then won Olympic gold.

To quote Caitlin Napier in Marie Claire, “she takes up space with ease, a reminder that the stage is large enough to hold many forms of brilliance. In a cultural moment starved of uncomplicated joy, watching a young woman succeed with happiness feels like exactly what we need to see.”

Header Image: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images.