If you have a Peacock subscription and were paying even a modicum of attention to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, you probably already know Alysa Liu. The 20-year-old figure skater brought home two gold medals (and a little payday) from the games, contributing to the team gold and her own individual win. Given her wild backstory and recent return to the sport, some fans have been wondering if Liu will be heading back to retirement? Luckily, she’s already given us an answer.
Ms. Liu was only 16 when she competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, placing 7th in the women’s individual competition after making some minor mistakes during her short program. In April of that same year, she announced she was retiring from the sport of figure skating. This story, the story of her triumphant return, was told over and over again by commenter Johnny Weir and co. during the 2026 Olympics:
How she’d gone on a ski trip and re-fallen in love with the idea of figure skating. How no woman had ever been able to make as successful of a comeback after retiring in the same way she had, doing well right out of the gate, and ultimately beating Kaori Sakimoto at the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships to land the gold medal. (Plus, a spot in that now-not-so-secret figure skating group chat.) It was an accolade she would repeat at the Olympics, a very American story filled with determination and individualism, one that aligned well with the comeback narrative fellow American Amber Glenn had that same night.
Now that she’s done the thing, though, I could easily see how she might want to take a break again. However, Alysa Liu has found her passion with figure skating again, doing her own hair and keeping tabs on her body and the amount she wants to train in ways she had not been allowed to the first go around. She told Cosmo Sports this is the question she’s been asked over and over again since her return to the sport.
So many people ask me if I am going to retire after this year, and I really thought about their question. I cannot imagine not skating in a year. I can’t imagine next year being off the ice.
One other fact of note: Despite 2026 being her second Olympics, Alysa Liu is only 20 at this point. The aforementioned Kaori Sakamoto was 25 this year when she competed at the Olympics, so there’s every reason to think that if Liu does want to grind it out a bit longer, she could get another Olympic experience under her belt. For at least the future in the short-term, we can count her in for more skating.
I really do like to skate, so I can’t see myself stopping anytime soon, which is so crazy to say because I didn’t think this way for so long.
There’s one caveat. She wants the freedom to make her art. She wants to wear her hair the way she wants to. She wants to express herself on and off the ice in ways that make her, and not her coaches, happy.
I made a deal with my coaches: No one tells me what I’m gonna wear. No one tells me how my hair is gonna be. No one’s gonna try to change me. I’m going to pick my own programs and skate the sessions I want to skate. Y’all are my coaches. You guys are going to help me and lead me in training, but I’m structuring it the way I want to. They mentioned some judges and higher-ups might be concerned. I said if they tell me to dye my hair back, I will quit. If they don’t like it and they want to give me less scores or treat me differently, that’s on them. If I change my hair, it’s gonna be because I wanted to.
It’s a deal her coaches agreed to when she made the call to return to the sport, and it’s a deal that ultimately landed the US both team and individual medals. I’m pretty sure that’s what they call a win-win.
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