A pop playlist and a ski trip: How world champion Alysa Liu fell back in love with figure skating

Newly crowned ice skating world champion Alysa Liu glides effortlessly across the ice in all-black attire accented with a turquoise waistband. With every pirouette she lands, her bangs and ponytail bounce along. Liu, who was raised in Richmond, is at the Oakland Ice Center, her home base practice facility. 

The 19-year-old is fresh off winning gold at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships held in Boston in March. She is the first woman skater from the United States to win a world figure skating title since 2006, the year she was born, dethroning defending champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan in the process.

The Winter Olympics are coming in February 2026, and while competing is on her mind, Liu is easing back into skating one day at a time. The world champ is currently part of the Stars On Ice tour, which is at San Jose’s SAP Center on Sun., May 18.

On the day this reporter visited the Oakland Ice Center, Liu had just flown back home the night before, returning from a whirlwind tour following her victory, including media engagements and throwing out the first pitch (with a double axel, of course) at a St. Louis Cardinals game. For her practice, Liu picks the songs she wants to skate to. Like the young Gen-Z she is, current music superstars feature heavily on her playlist. 

At the morning practice, the song Blame It On Your Love by Charli XCX blasted from the speakers. At first, Liu was the only one skating, with a handful of other skaters casually checking out her practice as they walked by. At one point, someone stopped by to tell Liu what a great skater she was. “Thank you so much,” Liu shyly responded. 

In addition to Charli XCX, Liu enjoys skating to the sounds of artists like Pink Panthers, the Marias, Mitski, Billie Eilish, SZA, Kali Uchis, and Tyler the Creator.

“The music I skate to is based on how I’m feeling,” Liu said. “This sport is very artistic and you move better when you have music.”

Liu, after a three-year hiatus, is returning to skating on her own terms. Her practicing routine is pretty laid-back compared to the grueling sessions she endured when she was younger. These days, she skates for about an hour in the morning and then runs errands or hangs out with friends. She comes back to the rink in the afternoon to skate for another hour or so and then goes to the gym. “Then, the rest of the day is free real estate for me,” she said. “I do whatever I want.”

She checked out the highly praised movie Sinners during one of her recent outings. 

“It was so good! It’s one of my favorite movies right now,” she said. 

Liu was surprised to learn that the film’s director, Ryan Coogler, was born and raised in Oakland. 

“No way! That’s awesome!,” she said. “I love the concept of the movie and how it played out. I love to dance, so the dancing scene was my favorite.”

In 2019, at age 13, Liu became the youngest figure skating champion in American history and was a rising star. Then, she won the U.S. championship again in 2020. She placed sixth at the 2022 Winter Olympics and, at age 16, decided to retire from skating later that year. 

“Take a break so it helps you figure out what you want,” Liu said about what seemed like an abrupt retirement. “When you’re in your bubble, you can’t see it, so you have to take a step back to really figure out what you want to do.”

She wasn’t finding joy in the sport anymore. After a break of more than two years, Liu’s gold medal in March came as a shock even to the figure skater herself. 

Aside from the burnout of being an athlete, constantly practicing and traveling, Liu was missing out on time at home with her siblings. Liu is the oldest of five in a family of one sister and triplets.

“There’s a lot of chaos, but it’s also really fun to have siblings,” Liu said.

Liu was born in Clovis, California, and raised in Richmond, but she calls Oakland home. While on her skating hiatus, she moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA, where she is currently on deferred status.

She attended Oakland School for the Arts for one semester in middle school but switched to online schooling for the rest of her education due to her hectic training schedule.

“Looking back, I wish I didn’t have to do that,” Liu said. “But that was the decision that was made.”

Despite missing out on a traditional school setting, Liu formed close friendships that carry on today. Her best friend, Liu said, lives near the Oakland Ice Center.

“I go to her house all the time. Also, a lot of my friends go to Berkeley, so I hang out with them there,” Liu said. “We love to go hiking, Lake Temescal, the Berkeley Marina, or Baker Beach in the city.”

While she enjoyed her time as a typical teenager and a college student, a ski trip in January 2024 reminded her of her love for ice skating.

“I went skiing, and your legs are tired, you’re out of breath, you’re cold, and the cold wind keeps hitting you, and you’re gliding down the mountain, and that’s a lot like skating,” Liu said.

When she quit skating, she found skiing to be the perfect sport for her. But, she said, skiing is expensive, and it is difficult to get to the mountains. 

“If anyone loves skiing, come to the ice rink, you’ll love it,” she said. “So, I ended up just coming back to the rink.” 

While she is now a world champion, returning to the ice wasn’t easy. 

“It took about half a year to get used to the skates,” Liu said. “My feet were killing me after every practice.”

Liu said that although she wasn’t great the first few times she got on the ice, it was fun for her to skate again.

“It didn’t matter that I wasn’t good because I had that feeling of freedom,” she said. 

Now that she is back on the ice on her terms, she wants parents of young athletes to listen to their children when they are ready to take a break.

“For me, my balance is my social life, skating and school. I think it’s crucial because we are humans before being athletes,” Liu said. “I’m taking it day by day because it’s a conscious decision for me to come to the rink and skate. I have no attachments to anything, so I just kind of live and go with it.”

This story originally was originally published by The Oaklandside.