You might have thought you’d have many years to see Alysa Liu skate.
Instead, her appearance with the Stars on Ice tour in San Jose on Sunday is one of the dwindling chances to see the East Bay native perform.
Liu, just 16 and with one Olympics to her name, announced on Instagram in March that she is retiring from figure skating.
“I made the decision for myself a while ago, way before the Olympics,” Liu said in a recent phone interview. “My only goal was to go to the Olympics.
“I’m only 16. I want to do other stuff.”
It was a startling decision for a young skater who often was called “the future” of American skating. She was the youngest U.S. champion in history, winning the title at 13 and again at 14. She was the youngest female to land a triple axel internationally and the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple jump in competition.
But “the future” wasn’t what she wanted for her future.
Liu’s is the type of personal choice that we’re not accustomed to seeing.
The typical story line is that the ingenue becomes internationally competitive, makes an Olympics (or Grand Slam or whatever the top competition is), participates, sticks around, gets older, maybe doesn’t know when to leave. The forces invested in the athlete — parents, coaches, sponsors, federations, peers — make an individual decision to give up the expensive, all-consuming sport seem almost impossible.
But young athletes are taking more control over their lives. Australian tennis player Ash Barty retired at 25, shortly after winning her third Grand Slam in January.
And now Liu, at 16.
She has been skating since she was 5 and wants her own life. She wants to hang out with her four younger siblings, live at her house in Richmond, apply to college, spend time with friends, get her driver’s license, play the piano, cuddle with her cat Xiao Bao.
All things she couldn’t do while she pursued an Olympic-level skating career.
“I have no regrets,” she said. “I’m sure it would be the opposite, if I stayed in skating. I’d have regrets.”
Like so many Olympians, Liu had a particularly tough stretch leading up to the Beijing Olympics. She trained in Oakland but had limited ice time at the height of the pandemic, having to go in and out of the building with her skates already on, skating alone and doing warm-ups and other training in a public park.
But, she says, none of those factors caused her retirement.
Liu’s only Olympics was strange. She was in tightly restricted Beijing. Her competition was overshadowed by the positive drug test by Russian skater Kamila Valieva. Liu was unable to explore her father’s homeland, or visit relatives, or fully experience China beyond peering out the window of the bus to and from her venue.
After the Olympics, it came out that Alysa and her father, Arthur Liu, had been targeted in a spying campaign. The U.S. Justice Department announced charges against a group of men accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government, stalking and harassing Chinese dissidents.
Alysa Liu declined to comment on the situation. On her Instagram she posted, “hi everyone!! the case regarding my family being spied on by the chinese government is beyond sport. if you don’t know about the politics and history of china, please refrain from commenting about it. i am proud of what my dad did for his people in 1989.”
Following the Olympics, in which she finished seventh, Liu skated in the world championships in France, where she won a bronze medal. That competition, too, was strange; the favored Russians were banned in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Despite all the oddness and tension, Liu looks back fondly on her lone Olympics. After all, she has no other experience to which to compare it.
And when it was over, she knew it was really over.
“I didn’t really ask (my dad’s) opinion when I decided to retire,” she said. “After all, it’s my life. But he supports my decision.
“It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. It’s purely for myself. I guess it’s selfish.”
In the past few years, mental health has become a huge point of concern for athletes in general, including Olympic athletes, who plunge from relative anonymity into the global spotlight. Liu spoke regularly to a therapist and learned to appreciate skating for herself, not for the results.
In the process, she learned that putting herself first was important.
“I used to be stressed and nervous and scared,” she said in February. “My goal now is to do a good program for myself.”
And now, her goal is to make a good life for herself.
She already has graduated high school and will apply to college for the 2023-24 school year. Her top choices are Stanford, Cal and Barnard, but she knows she may change her mind. She thinks she will study law and business, but she also knows that idea may change.
“Olympic skater” was just one of her roles. One she is ready to shed.
Ann Killion is a columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @annkillion
