"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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With four Olympic medals, Kaori Sakamoto didn't need gold to cement her legacy

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With four Olympic medals, Kaori Sakamoto didn't need gold to cement her legacy

Kaori Sakamoto knew well before the scores were announced. She skated off the ice Thursday night at the Milano Ice Skating Arena with a glum expression on her face. She could sense that the one jump she couldn’t pull off in her free skate was going to keep her from the gold medal.

Alysa Liu, the soon-to-be champion, got up from the leader’s chair as soon as Sakamoto left the ice surface. Liu hugged Sakamoto tight and long. A tear worked its way slowly down Sakamoto’s right cheek. More tears would flow later from the most decorated women’s figure skater in Japanese history.

“I really wanted to skate perfectly here,” Sakamoto said via an interpreter. “Knowing that I couldn’t, and it was the difference for the gold, was painful. I couldn’t stop the tears.”

This was her third and last Winter Olympics. The second, four years ago, had also ended in tears so strong her body shook as she wept. Those tears looked like a mixture of happiness over winning what she calls “a miracle” bronze medal and relief over simply surviving the chaos surrounding the women’s singles event in Beijing.

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Moving forward, Ilia Malinin intends to skate at world meet in March

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Moving forward, Ilia Malinin intends to skate at world meet in March

Ilia Malinin's agent, Ari Zakarian, confirmed in a text message on Sunday that Malinin "will do" the World Championships in Prague from March 26-29.

Malinin has won the last two world titles and was a huge favorite for Olympic gold, but finished 8th after being, in his words, "overwhelmed" by Olympic pressure in Friday's free skate.  He staggered to 15th in the free after having won the short program.

“I blew it,” he told NBC’s Andrea Joyce.

Malinin deserves props, however, for the way he handled the disappointment in facing multiple media interviews while the award ceremonies went on without him.

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Ilia Malinin tops himself - and skating's record books - once again

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Ilia Malinin tops himself - and skating's record books - once again

I was tempted to take the last column I wrote about Ilia Malinin, change a few numbers and use that to describe what Malinin did Saturday in the men’s free skate at the Grand Prix Final in Nagoya, Japan.

This is how that Nov. 2 story began:

“There comes a point in the careers of some extraordinary athletes when they are competing against only themselves and the record books.”

And Malinin beat the record books again, even after making the men’s competition more interesting when a sloppy short program left him 16 points behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama.

Malinin overcame that with a quadruple jump array that never before had been used successfully in a skating event. And that is worth a fresh look.

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Amber Glenn aims to defend Grand Prix Final title, free of fear

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Amber Glenn aims to defend Grand Prix Final title, free of fear

The old Amber Glenn might have come undone by what happened during the six-minute warmup for the short program at the Finlandia Trophy Grand Prix event.

Glenn competed in Finland just eight days after undergoing a root canal procedure. And she still was getting antibiotics for a sinus infection that had lingered since summer, with the medicine making her feel tired.

And then she popped her two attempts at her most difficult jump, the triple Axel, in the warmup. Popping – doing a single rotation rather than three - can shake any figure skater’s confidence.

About 45 minutes later, Glenn took the ice for her short program, opened by nailing the triple Axel and went on to win that phase of the competition with her season-best score.

“That was 100% the new Amber,” said Damon Allen, her coach, via telephone.

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