YantsImages, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Figure Skating terrifies me. The precision and technique—the angle at which a skate returns to the ice after spins is quite literally the difference between success and failure—is overwhelming to consider for 99% of mere mortals. I often laugh incredulously each time a skater leaps into the air spinning like a top only to have announcers gasp and tsk tsk at what, to me, appeared to be a perfectly acceptable landing. On the darker side, however, it can be difficult to focus on celebrating the athletes due to uneasy thoughts of the harsh world we know it to be. The sport is rife with adolescent athletes, intense competition, fights for money and sponsorship, obsessive parents, abusive coaches, and institutions incentivized to look the other way. The artistry and athleticism of elite-level figure skating is beautiful, powerful and artistic, and, there’s an unshakable sense that a fingernail’s scratch of the surface would uncover something revolting.
Alysa Liu existed in that ecosystem at the top levels before becoming a teenager. Her dad, a Chinese-American political refugee who immigrated to the United States after his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, raised five children, including Alysa, as a single father. Liu, who showed an aptitude and interest in skating from a young age, quickly found herself thrown into the harsh world of competitive figure skating. By the time she was sixteen, she’d had enough, and shocked the skating world by announcing her retirement before she could even vote.
After time away, she returned, but with a singular purpose: to change her world. Liu’s counter to the normalized brutality of elite-level figure skating was the radical belief that her complete self should, and could, be enough. With that as her North Star, she set her terms. She established several boundaries to protect herself and her joy—she would choose her music and outfits, collaborate on her choreography and training structure, and what she could and could not eat. Each was non-negotiable, and each was necessary to begin regrowing the elements of her skating that made her special.
Liu’s conscious uncoupling from the suffocating (or worse) world of figure skating is that it wasn’t borne through egotism or a sense that she always knew best, instead it was something purer, and kinder. What she needed, and then built, was community. She re-hired two coaches who supported her and her newfound need to protect and channel the passion and joy she’d lost. It was their job to collaborate with her on ways to display that light on the ice, and connect her talent, athleticism and joy to those watching.
Prior to the Olympics, the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships finished with Amber Glenn on the top step, Alysa second, and 18-year-old Isabeau Levito in third. The bubbly trio headed to Milan with nicknames ranging from ‘The Bratz Set’ to ‘Powerpuff Girls’, before eventually—via vote—settling on ‘Blade Angels’. With the quirkiness they shared and the love, motivation and support they consistently showed toward each other, the three women shifted from competitors to community. (As a child of the 90s who can still hear wails of “Why me!”, this in itself is astounding enough.)
Their connection was authentic and necessary. It was also boundless and infectious. During and after the final routines that determined the medal order, Glenn and Liu comforted and protected their Japanese competitors. Liu, with the gold medal around her neck, hugged 17-year-old Ami Nakai, whose small technical errors saw her only able to secure bronze. Liu rubbed her shoulders, smiled, and forced the teenager to celebrate her accomplishment by jumping up and down. The moment was pure and extended beyond competition and into something human, so much so that Nakai’s coach could be seen in the background wiping away tears as they celebrated. Later, Glenn would shoo cameras away from Kaori Sakamoto, who had the technical elements to win gold but narrowly lost out, in what has been announced to be the 25-year-old’s final Olympic competition.
All of this was related and intentional, and foundational to the new environment in which Liu wanted to exist—one with humanity as its cornerstone. Her actions and demands were foreign to the systematically cold world of figure skating, with its rigidity and shrinking of humanity positioned as a prerequisite for success; in that world suffering, isolation, inferiority and a lack of control are normalized. By prioritizing human connection—with herself and to others—she transformed her once harsh and overwhelming world into one that is safe and free.
There are numerous parallels to the exhaustive, toxic and frequently abusive ecosystems of figure skating, and present life in this country. In both, abusers aren’t shunned they're promoted. Domineering is the predominant relationship between authority and everyone else, and power wielded as a hammer is the only solution to problems, real or contrived. Humanity is consistently devalued, stolen, and even mocked. Things that should never be allowed to be are instead ever-present, birthed by layer after layer of absent consequences. None of this is normal, we all know it in our hearts and minds. But it is our everyday, so how can it not feel like normal?
Liu's free skate was a timely reminder of what exists on the other side. If the concept of liberation could be grabbed and molded into a figure skating routine, it would look exactly the same as her captivating free skate. During her time on the ice, Alysa was in her own world, not one she escaped to, but one she built. The routine invited everyone inside to share in the triumph of its existence. After, the routine was spoken of as pure joy and passion, both of which existed in bountiful amounts. The part that still gets me is the trademark second knee slide, when all her jumps were landed and she spun on the ice with her head between her palms. It was pure elation. It was freedom.
The same radical reconnection to humanity Liu used to find that world serves as a beautiful reminder that power exists in community, compassion, and the relentless pursuit of liberation. That greatness and/or success doesn’t require the loss of safety for oneself or one's community. That individual pursuit can coexist with shared humanity, that competition can coexist with compassion. Through her we got to experience what liberation from a harsh and brutal world looks and feels like. Oh yeah, and she won the gold medal too.
Liberation and winning? That’s what I’m fuckin' talking about. ◼︎