Alysa Liu performed for the people, especially her family, in Olympic short program

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Alysa Liu performed for the people, especially her family, in Olympic short program

Over the two seasons since Alysa Liu returned to figure skating, she has found happiness in performing for the audience rather than for the judges who decide what place she gets in competitions.

Because that audience for the 2026 Olympic short program included her four younger siblings, who had never been able to see their sister skate in either of the two phases of her career, Liu was even more overjoyed at the opportunity to perform for them.

She saw them, sitting with her father and her best friend, during the six-minute warmup that preceded her taking the ice as the first skater in the final group Tuesday night on Milan. She looked at them while heading into her double Axel jump and during her footwork sequence.

“I performed to the people and, like, they're right there, so I performed to them specifically,” Liu said. “It was a really cool moment.”

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Alysa Liu competes at her second Olympic Games with joy

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Alysa Liu competes at her second Olympic Games with joy

Just before starting her short program in the 2026 Olympic figure skating team event, the new Alysa Liu cruised along the rink boards, smiling broadly, slapping hands with her coaches, Massimo Scali and Phillip DiGuglielmo, as she rocketed past them. 

In the midst of her program, she responded to a front-leaning landing on her double Axel jump with a bemusedly funky facial expression, a reaction Liu could cheerily describe as “like, oopsie” since the imbalance didn’t result in a faceplant.

As she skated off the ice toward the Team USA Box at the Milano Ice Skating Arena after a performance that was fallible but never fragile, Liu pumped both fists in unison, yelled, “Yeah!,” then turned around to tumble into a group hug when her scores were announced.

“I want people to see everything about me,” Liu said, then added an hour later, “I love, I guess, being noticed.”

How different that is than four years ago, when the old Alysa Liu might have preferred to skate with the lights off at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when the sport brought darkness rather than joy to her life, gave her pain rather than pleasure.

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Amber Glenn wins third straight U.S. title in "thrilling and terrifying" free skate

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Amber Glenn wins third straight U.S. title in "thrilling and terrifying" free skate

ST. LOUIS, Missouri — There could have been no better test of Amber Glenn’s growing mental strength than what she went though as the final skater in the free skate at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

One after the other, the four women who preceded Glenn each put out an excellent and compelling performance, leaving the Enterprise Center rocking with standing ovations. First came Bradie Tennell, then Sarah Everhardt, Isabeau Levito and Alysa Liu.

And then it was Glenn’s turn.

“My God, to have to skate after that,” Glenn said. “It was thrilling and terrifying.”

Glenn would add to the thrills because she had learned through years of effort and psychological support how to fight the terrors.

The 26-year-old woman, who frankly admits having long been her own worst enemy, became a three-time national champion on what will be remembered as one of the most exciting nights of women’s skating in the 112-year history of the event.

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For Isabeau Levito, once No. 1, the perspective is different

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For Isabeau Levito, once No. 1, the perspective is different

ST. LOUIS, Missouri — This was going to be Isabeau Levito’s Olympic quadrennium, a four-year span in which she would become the leading lady of U.S. Figure Skating and smoothly glide past markers on the way to the 2026 Winter Games in her mother’s hometown of Milan.

After all, Levito, now age 18, had made the podium in her senior national debut four years ago, winning bronze after taking second in the free skate. At that point, she was below the Olympic age minimum.

By five months after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, all three women on the U.S. team in China had retired from competition.

A year later, Levito won the short program and the free skate at the 2023 U.S. Championships, seemingly establishing her national dominion with her balletic skating.

“She was having her moment, and since then she has been up and down,” said Adam Rippon, 2018 Olympic team event bronze medalist and an NBC contributor.

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Sophie Joline von Felten heads to figure skating nationals free from Olympic pressure

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Sophie Joline von Felten heads to figure skating nationals free from Olympic pressure

Ice skating had been a big part of Inna von Felten’s childhood in Russia.

Her father, Yuri, was a city speedskating champion in Moscow. And when Soviet sports officials visited her kindergarten to look for potential athletes, a key part of the country’s talent identification system, they thought the smallish Inna fit the physical parameters for a pairs figure skater. She would skate pairs from age 4 to 13, her competitive career ended by a knee injury.

Yet the initial motivation for Inna to have her only child, Sophie Joline, try figure skating came from elsewhere.

Inna and her Swiss husband, Daniel von Felten, were on a Christmas holiday trip to Paris when they saw a pop-up seasonal rink on the Champs-Elysees. The setting was so magical Inna imagined skating there one day with her daughter, and she found out young children were allowed on the adult part of the rink with a parent if they could skate unassisted.

“I had her try skating to make my wish come true,” Inna said.

What followed was a clear example of needing to be a little careful about what you wish for. The wish has morphed into a dream come true for her daughter, and it has turned the family’s life into a bi-continental adventure.

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