"She doesn't want to be famous. She wants to be Alysa."

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"She doesn't want to be famous. She wants to be Alysa."

Alysa Liu won two Olympic gold medals by doing things her way.

And, her coach says, Liu hopes to keep doing that once she leaves Italy on Sunday.

That’s why it’s probably a good thing that she has skating commitments to keep her busy for the next two months, including a trip to Prague to defend her world title in late March.

“No press tour right away, no nothing,” coach Phillip DiGuglielmo said Saturday via telephone from Milan, not long before Liu closed down the exhibition gala’s solo performances.

“We have to figure out how we are going to train (for worlds). We may have to ask the rink management (in Oakland, Calif.) to close the rink when she trains because of the attention she has gotten. “Dealing with that kind of attention is not what she wants now. She doesn’t want to be famous. She wants to be Alysa.”

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates 'wouldn't change anything' after ice dance silver

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Madison Chock, Evan Bates 'wouldn't change anything' after ice dance silver

They had occupied the ice dance penthouse for so much of the past four seasons, including the last three World Championships, that Madison Chock and Evan Bates might as well have been declared owners of the place.

Yet when they were ready to throw a housewarming celebration in front of the world, Chock and Bates were evicted by a couple of new kids on the block, French team Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron, whom they know as friends and train with at the same rink in Montreal.

So, the apparent end of the U.S. ice dancers’ stellar career did not include the individual Olympic gold medal that had been their goal since deciding they would try for a fourth Winter Games as competitive partners and a first as husband and wife.

Chock and Bates claimed silver after Wednesday’s free dance, adding an individual medal to the golds they won in the team event at both this Olympics and the last. They were a frustrated fourth in the 2022 ice dance event.

“It’s definitely a little bittersweet, because we are so, so happy with how we performed this week,” Chock said, her voice cracking as she continued the thought.

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Despite twists and turns, U.S. ice dancers Zingas and Kolesnik stay in fast lane

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Despite twists and turns, U.S. ice dancers Zingas and Kolesnik stay in fast lane

There are a lot of unexpected plot twists in the story of how Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik got here.

Not the least of those surprises simply is what “here” means to them this week.

The U.S. ice dancers are in Helsinki, Finland, where they will compete beginning Friday in the Finlandia Trophy event on the Grand Prix circuit, with a chance to make the Grand Prix Final and/or simply build their case for getting one the three U.S. ice dance spots at the 2026 Winter Olympics. 

Who would have imagined a convert from singles skating in 2022 and an ice dancer from a war-ravaged city in Ukraine could be a team in this position so quickly?

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