Alysa Liu has become one of the most-talked-about athletes at the Olympics over the first week of competition in Milan, Italy.
The 20-year-old American figure skater has captured headlines by winning gold in the team event and then posting on social media hours later that it had broken apart.
While she had to return her first gold medal for a new one, Liu has a chance at a second in the main event of figure skating in Milan: the women’s individual competition.
Liu enters as one of the favorites to podium and vie for that top prize.
But four years ago, following her Olympic Games debut in Beijing, she thought that would be the end of her career.
At 16 years old.
Liu retired from the sport at the same age she could get her first driver’s license.
Why?
More news: Team USA Figure Skater Alysa Liu Just Got a Whole New Gold Medal
More news: Alysa Liu Reveals the Meaning Behind Her Now-Viral Olympics Hairstyle
To understand why Liu retired at such a young age, you first have to understand how her career started. While prodigies and wunderkinds fill the ranks of the top figure skaters in the world, Liu was on a different level.
At 13, she won the United States national figure skating championship.
Not the junior title. The women’s national championship. One of the most difficult and grueling competitions to win in all of women’s figure skating, and Liu did it at 13.
From there, she became a superstar. She went on talk shows. She was trotted out for media appearances throughout the country. Liu became a brand for young athletes in the United States.
After devoting her entire life to figure skating, it burned Liu out. By the time she made it to her first Olympics in China, she had already decided that it would be her last. Liu wasn’t even aiming for a medal four years ago; instead, she said that she went to have fun and enjoy the entire experience.
Liu finished seventh and promptly retired.
Two years later, though, she returned, following a ski trip that awoke her competitive spirit to try figure skating on her own terms. Not anyone else’s.
“I got what I wanted,” Liu said in an interview with Team USA. “I started skating when I was five and I never got a break, really. And I also wanted to go to school and experience that, because up until that point, I was homeschooled all through high school, and basically all of middle school as well. I was lacking experience in other things in the world. All I knew was skating, and I just wanted to live my life.”
Although she admitted she would be taking figure skating less seriously than she had as a child, Liu continued to pick up top results before ultimately winning the most recent world championship.
Now, in her second Olympics, Liu is still having fun and enjoying herself, but has a chance to vie for individual gold.
Unlike before, though, the pressure is off.
Younger skaters with their own prodigal stories will be taking on Liu, including her teammate, Isabeau Levito, 18, from Philadelphia.
All Liu has to do is go out onto the ice and let the music roll.