A “new” Alysa Liu in a good place for a transformative season

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A “new” Alysa Liu in a good place for a transformative season

UPDATE: Alysa Liu won the Nebelhorn Trophy, giving the USA a third women’s singles spot at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Choosing FaceTime rather than a telephone as the medium for an interview with Alysa Liu last week was fortuitous.

The video connection revealed a Liu who smiled constantly – and punctuated the smile with frequent laughs – during a 30-minute conversation.

Liu, talking from a hotel room in the small northern Italian town of Egna, clearly was in a good place.

And not only because the mountain scenery Liu could see outside the hotel is beautiful.

It also was because Liu’s new view of herself has put her in a good headspace.

“I’m much happier now,” Liu said. “I feel better. Mentally, I’m in a very good spot.”

You could see that clearly from Liu’s confident, mature skating in her first two events as an international senior competitor, the Cranberry Cup International in August and the Lombardia Trophy in September. She won both events by huge margins and, more significantly, her performance quality showed a striking maturity.

It was evidence that, at age 16, Liu has suddenly gone beyond the image of jumping prodigy that once captured her skating.

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Bradie Tennell arrives again at the summit of U.S. women’s skating

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Bradie Tennell arrives again at the summit of U.S. women’s skating

Bradie Tennell knows the old cliché athletes use to explain what keeps them going through thick and thin, when they try not to have their eyes always on a prize.

“They say it’s about the journey, not the destination,” Tennell said. “But the destination feels pretty good, too.”

It was a place she had been before and one Tennell turned her life inside out last summer to reach again: the top step of the women’s podium at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Tennell got there Friday night as convincingly as she had the first time, in 2018, sweeping the short program and free skate, earning 232.61 points and winning by a whopping 17.28 over the surprise (and surprised) runner-up, Amber Glenn, whose best previous finish at nationals was fifth last year.

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For reigning U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu, growing pains shrink expectations

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For reigning U.S. figure skating champion Alysa Liu, growing pains shrink expectations


It’s easy to understand why Alysa Liu has altered her perspective for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships next week in Las Vegas.

“I don’t necessarily care about my placement anymore,” Liu said via telephone Wednesday.

The two-time defending champion realizes she will be hard-pressed to make it three straight. Getting onto the awards podium might even be out of reach, given what the 15-year-old Liu has been dealing with this season:

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

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A taller Alysa Liu also hoping to show growth as a skater

Word on the street is Alysa Liu has grown.

The two-time reigning U.S. figure skating champion said that’s true… to a degree. The two inches of height she added between last season and her 15th birthday in August don’t change Liu’s perspective.

“I just went from really short to very short,” Liu said, wryly, via telephone after a training session last week in San Francisco. “I’m up to 5-0. I like the five-foot number, but it’s still short.”

Anyway, the more important measure will be how much Liu has grown as a skater since her successful 2019-20 debut in international junior competition.

As is the case for all skaters, especially those in North America, such skating growth risks being temporarily stunted by restrictions on training and lack of competition caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And physical growth, even if it is only two inches, can also be problematic.

In Liu’s case, issues related to the pandemic have complicated her sudden shift to a new coaching team in late June, when she announced a split from Laura Lipetsky, who had coached her since age 5. Cancellation of the Junior Grand Prix series is giving Liu more travel-free time to adapt to the new situation, although, ironically, travel restrictions are keeping her from having the two-country, three-coach arrangement work the way it was planned.

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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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