UCLA student Alysa Liu will return from the 2026 Winter Olympics with a pair of figure skating gold medals Daily Bruin, one from the team event and one from the women’s singles competition.
Liu was nearly flawless in her free skate, surging from third place after the short program to claim gold and end a 24-year wait for an American woman to win the event. Olympics Some other major achievements include the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships gold medal in women’s singles, and the 2019 U.S. Figure Skating Championships gold medal, where she made history as the youngest champion ever.
Alysa Liu was born in Clovis, California on August 8, 2005, and grew up in the Oakland area. She is now 20 years old and started skating when she was just five. By age 13, she had become the youngest U.S. women’s national champion. Wikipedia After placing sixth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics at just 16 years old, she stepped away from skating to live a normal teenage life. She enrolled at UCLA as a psychology student in fall 2023, but by the end of her freshman year had returned to consistent training with the goal of competing once again. Daily Bruin
On whether she is glad to have returned to the sport, Liu said: “It was just right.” CBS News She came back because she missed skating and wanted to do it for herself again. Her story inspires many people because it shows that taking a break is okay, and that success is not always a straight path. Things take time, even dreams. As Liu herself has said, “I love struggling, it actually makes me feel alive.”
