Alysa Liu’s journey to Olympic glory is far from a fairy tale, achieved through unwavering dedication and selfless sacrifices. At just 20 years old, she captured the hearts of many Americans, soaring to gold in the women’s figure skating competition and ending a 24-year drought. However, the path to that glorious moment was paved with years of darkness, a period of her life so brutal that she deliberately erased it from memory.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Liu opened up about the training horrors she endured as a 13-year-old prodigy, long before the world knew her as an Olympic champion.

“Probably because [that time in my life] was so bad, I just didn’t want to remember it. Practice was so serious. I would cry after falling on every jump. The team I had around me was so strict. I was in fight-or-flight mode all the time,” she recalled, painting a portrait of a child athlete operating not out of joy, but survival.

At the very age when she became the youngest U.S. women’s champion in history, landing three triple Axels and electrifying the nation, her internal world was collapsing under the pressure.

Alysa Liu then added about the psychological trap that ensnares so many young athletes, who are pushed to the brink, stating, “I didn’t enjoy being at the rink from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, but I skated every day because I was scared that I would lose all my jumps and lose my abilities if I took a day off. And [since] every day was the same, I can’t recall certain years or stuff like that. I missed birthdays and holidays, so that also makes the timeline a little bit sketchy for me. There’s no pinpoints.”

The control extended beyond her time. Coaches monitored everything, even her water intake. Her father, Arthur Liu, who first brought her to the Oakland Ice Center at age five, later acknowledged the cost of his ambition. He admitted he “made a mistake” by sending his 16-year-old daughter to live alone in Colorado Springs for training.

By then, the damage was done. After rising through the ranks with various accolades on international stages, Liu walked away at 16, burned out and desperate to reclaim a life she barely remembered.

However, it seemed fated for her to return to the top step of the sport’s grandest stage.

That one trip changed Alysa Liu’s course

Two years into retirement, Alysa Liu was still taking psychology classes at UCLA and was leading a normal life, away from the rink. However, in early 2024, everything changed. She went on a ski trip with her friends, which ultimately triggered her comeback journey.

Her best friend Tseh Newton opened up, stating, “I remember it was like our first time skiing and we were driving and she was like, I’m going to do black diamond today. And like some people say that as a joke, she was dead serious. I was like, we need to take it slow. We’re not, we’re not going on a black diamond or double black diamond anywhere in this morning.”

She added, “But at the same time, it’s like, I knew that she would pick it up. And she did by the, by the end of the day, she probably could have done that diamonds. I mean, she’s just so athletically gifted in a lot of ways, like doing a sport like that again, that’s so fun. I wasn’t surprised that it reminded her of what she found in skating that she liked on the ride home from that trip.”

It was just another day for Liu, who was on a trip with her friends. And out of nowhere, this fateful day became an important part of her life, as after two years in Milan, she saw herself with not a single medal, but two Olympic gold medals to her name.