Unflappable under pressure, Alysa Liu remains U.S. ice queen

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Unflappable under pressure, Alysa Liu remains U.S. ice queen

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Not long before Alysa Liu was to take the ice as the last of 18 women to do her free skate Friday night at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the 14-year-old sat amidst the comings and goings and general commotion of a hallway leading to the ice. She had ear buds in place, munched on an apple and watched the skater who preceded her, Mariah Bell.

By the time Liu reached the Greensboro Coliseum rink for her final warmup moments, the ice surface was littered with stuffed animals, a form of tribute to an outstanding skater, and packed with the flower girls who pick them up. It was also awash with noise from an audience saluting the brilliant skating Bell had just done, an elegant, near flawless performance to k.d. Lang’s haunting interpretation of the emotionally powerful Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah.”

With the crowd’s reaction roaring in her now open ears, Liu weaved through the girls and the plushies in what seemed an eternity before the announcement of Bell’s scores. Liu waited and glided around with an aplomb that is just one of the many extraordinary parts of the personality of this 10th grader who last year had become the youngest U.S. senior champion in history.

In the crowd, 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano watched with his coach, Linda Leaver, trying to see how Liu would react to what could be a discomfiting, pressurized situation.

“When she came out, I said to Linda, ‘Welcome to the big leagues, girl,’” Boitano said. “I thought it was really a sign of a champion she was smiling, and she was relaxed.”

And when her four minutes of skating to “Illumination” by composer-pianist Jennifer Thomas was over, Liu had moved into a league of her own in the United States.

“I was very happy for Mariah,” Liu said. “I didn’t get nervous or excited. I was kind of like, ‘Okay, she did well, and I also have to do well.’”

Capitalizing on the high values of her difficult jumps, Liu skated so well she won her second title by more than 10 points, with 235.52 to Bell’s 225.81.

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Greensboro a time capsule for Jason Brown's skating career

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Greensboro a time capsule for Jason Brown's skating career

GREENSBORO, N.C. – For Jason Brown, coming to a national championships in Greensboro for the third time in 10 seasons meant opening a time capsule of fond memories and recalling how different his ambitions have been at each.

In 2011, Brown was 16, making his senior debut, second youngest in a field of 22. He delivered a breakthrough free skate, bringing the crowd to its feet, moving from 11th after the short program to seventh overall, leading his coach at the time, Kori Ade, to proclaim, with seeming hubris, that Brown’s goal would be to make the 2014 Olympic team.

Which, in fact, he did.

His goals going into the 2011 nationals free skate had been more modest than to begin establishing himself as an Olympic team contender. Brown simply wanted to make the 2011 U.S. team for the Junior World Championships, which he did, and get on TV, which he didn’t, much to his bemusement.

“I told all my friends I was going to be on TV because I was in one of the final two groups. But they showed just nine of the 12, and I was one of the other three,” he recalled, with a laugh, just before boarding a Thursday flight in Toronto on his way to North Carolina.

Four years later, after his 2014 Riverdance free skate had become a viral sensation and he had won an Olympic bronze in the team event, Brown returned to Greensboro aiming for the U.S. title. That changed mindset told him how far he had come.

And he won what remains his only national title, as his artistry, elegant blade flow and striking spins no longer were enough in an era when his lack of success with quadruple jumps became an insurmountable and ever-growing disadvantage against rivals landing multiple quads.

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Alysa Liu, reigning national ice queen, has no pomp in her daily circumstances

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Alysa Liu, reigning national ice queen, has no pomp in her daily circumstances

OAKLAND, Calif. – Every weekday morning when she is at home, Alysa Liu makes the 30-minute drive with her father, Arthur, from their house in Richmond, Calif. to her home away from home, the Oakland Ice Center on the edge of downtown.

Arthur Liu, a single father of five, drops off Alysa, 14, his oldest child, just after 8 a.m., and then heads to his law office nearby. She will stay at the rink for nearly all the next nine or so hours before he picks her up for the trip back to Richmond.

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Alina Zagitova takes a break: what does that say about figure skating?

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Alina Zagitova takes a break: what does that say about figure skating?

All the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the potential end of Alina Zagitova’s competitive career at age 17 has had enough time to die down that everyone can take a less emotional look at the situation.

And what better time to do that than just before the Russian National Championships? Had Zagitova, reigning Olympic and world champion, been competing in Krasnoyarsk this week, she would have been hard-pressed to improve on her startlingly poor fifth-place finish of a year ago, when three junior skaters swept the senior podium. Those three are likely to get all the medals again.

Yes, Zagitova insisted in a clarification Instagram post two days after announcing her plans that she is only taking a competitive break, while performing in ice shows and continuing to train. Wait until she sees how much better it feels not to be beating herself up and down – trying to contend with skaters in just her own Moscow club like the current top three in the world and the 11-year-old girl who just landed a quadruple toe loop.

And this is a lot bigger story than whether one skating champion like Zagitova can no longer keep up with the competition.

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Grand Prix Final results show how fast women’s figure skating revolution is progressing

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Grand Prix Final results show how fast women’s figure skating revolution is progressing

The revolution in women’s figure skating is being televised.

That’s a turn of phrase on an admittedly dated reference (Google it). The point is we all have been able to witness, from TV broadcasts or live streams, a season with the most radical change in the sport since child prodigy Sonja Henie, then age 11, began doing jumps in her programs nearly a century ago.

What we watched other child prodigies do at last week’s Grand Prix Final boggled the minds of even those who saw it coming, because no one imagined it coming this soon and to this degree.

This essentially Russian revolution, which has taken maximum advantage of the scoring system and youthful body types to overthrow longtime technical norms of women’s skating, has split the discipline into haves and have-nots.

There are those who have the high-scoring quadruple jumps or multiple triple Axels to seize all the medals. And those who do not have those big jumps and, as of now, no chance to regain the podiums from which they have been summarily ousted.

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