Sometimes, retirement is not the end of the road for an athlete. Take, for example, the likes of Lindsey Vonn and Michael Jordan. While it does take a lot of courage to get back to the mainstream competitive arena after retiring, very few can actually pull off such a trick with confidence. Belonging to this elite class of athletes is a 19-year-old figure skater from the USA. Making the headlines after a phenomenal performance at the 2025 World Championships, this teen prodigy has mesmerized everyone. And what’s even more unique is the fact that she already bid adieu to the sports at the tender age of 16!
Who are we talking about? Well, it’s none other than the American figure skater Alysa Liu. After deciding to come back from her premature retirement, Liu has shocked the entire skating community. With the 2025 World Figure Skating Championship underway, Liu led proceedings in her category. After the completion of the women’s short program, Liu is the leader with an impressive score of 74.58. And she could not be more happy. After all, such a bright performance surely reflects that Liu’s decision to come back was the right one.
Quite expected, Alysa Liu looked extremely happy after her performance. Appearing before the media, she was asked to comment on her performance. And her initial response was an excited one. Liu stated she was satisfied with how things went down. However, she also mentioned that she might become critical of her own performance once she watches it back with her coaches. “It felt very nice kind of start to end, especially in my footwork,” said Liu. But at the moment, Liu wanted to enjoy her comeback and also mentioned a key factor motivating her.
“I really saw the audience, and I could connect with them, especially with the, um, lyrics storyline progressing so much it was really a nice feeling,” Liu stated. Surely, the audience at the TD Garden was elated to the core. Watching Liu coming back and setting the stage on fire, the entire arena was filled with cheers. And why not? After all, Alysa Liu delivered a flawless routine to enchant the crowd.
Her routine consisted of a triple-flip triple-toe combination. It also had a double Axel and a triple Lutz. Thus, with such a dominant performance, Liu got the lead one point clear of the second-placed Mone Chiba from Japan. Now, while Alysa Liu is enjoying all the glitz and glamor at the moment, it is quite a curious thing to search why she retired in the first place.
Why did Alysa Liu walk away from the competitive sphere at 16 while she was at the zenith of success?
At just 16, Alysa Liu shocked the figure skating world! After bagging several accolades in such a tender age, she chose to retire! Soon after skating at the 2022 Winter Olympics and winning a bronze at the 2022 World Championships, Liu announced her unexpected retirement. After becoming the youngest U.S. women’s national champion at 13 and the first American woman to land a quadruple jump in competition, Liu was already a trailblazer. But behind the streak of success lay another story.
Liu was quietly exhausted. “I was so into skating that I really didn’t do much else,” Liu admitted. The pressure of training and competition had consumed her life to the point where it blurred together. Underscoring how deeply the sport had drained her, young Liu added, “There were many, many times when I didn’t enjoy it.” A year before the Olympics, Liu had already decided she would retire if she made the U.S. team. She wanted a life beyond skating. She wanted to experience school and vacations. She was running behind enjoying those simple teenage moments.
Her longtime coach, Phillip DiGuglielmo, understood her decision. “She felt she had kept up her side of the bargain with her father and the skating community,” he stated. After achieving her Olympic goals, Liu wanted to step away while still at the top. She toured briefly with ‘Stars on Ice and The Ice: Japan’ before leaving the sport in the summer of 2022.
And finally, the time away gave her some room to breathe. Alysa traveled to Nepal for a 17-day trek to Mount Everest Base Camp and allowed herself to explore life outside of skating. For Liu, retirement wasn’t an escape. Rather, it was a necessary reset. And that reset helped her to get back into the skating realm better and stronger.
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