Alysa Liu is very young, very talented, and yet, very matter of fact about her goals for the rest of the season.
"I'm just trying to train for every competition," she said. "I want to do well and do my best."
She became well-known after she earned the 2019 U.S. ladies title, but Liu has been steadily climbing the ranks since 2016, when at the 2016 U.S. Championships she became the youngest woman to win the intermediate gold medal at age eleven. She continued her success in competition in the 2018 U.S. Championships as the youngest competitor in the junior level, winning gold despite illness. At that level, she was already landing seven triple jumps and two double axels in her free skate. Liu won with an overall score of 184.16 points at the competition, nearly 20 points more than the field.
Then came her breakthrough year – it began in August 2018, with a ratified triple Axel in the free skate at the 2018 Asian Open Trophy in Bangkok where she won the gold medal and became the youngest skater in history to land a triple Axel in competition and the fourth American lady to do so. Still too young to compete internationally as a junior or senior at that point, she entered the 2019 U.S. Championships as a senior and won the title with strong technical scores, augmented by two triple Axels (one of which was in combination) and six triple jumps. She was the youngest female skater to land a triple Axel at the U.S. Championships and only the third woman after Tonya Harding and Kimmie Meissner to do so. Not to mention besting Tara Lipinski's record as the youngest woman to win the U.S. title at just 13 years old.
This season started well with a gold medal at the inaugural Aurora Games, an all-women competition in Albany, New York, in August 2019 where she made a splash in the media by landing a quadruple Lutz, the first American woman to do so, but this was not officially counted, since the event was not sanctioned by the ISU. Still, the jump made those who were perhaps not aware of Liu sit up and take notice.
"For her to go out there and rotate four times, land that clean quad Lutz, it's record-breaking. It's a big moment," noted Ashley Wagner, who also competed in the Games.
Liu continued to rack up "big moments", competing next at the Junior Grand Prix event in Lake Placid, New York, later that same month. Making her international debut at the junior level, she landed the quad Lutz again, this time in an ISU competition and becoming the first American woman to land the jump, and the first female skater in the world to land the triple Axel and quad jump in the same program. She won the event by over 20 points.
In her next Grand Prix event in Gdańsk, Poland, she struggled a bit in the short program, doubling a planned triple loop, placing fourth, but recovered enough in the free skate to earn gold. Liu earned a season's best score of 138.99 in the free, and became the first American woman to qualify for the ISU Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final since 2013, with 30 points and the second-highest standing. She is keeping her goals simple, as she has been doing since the beginning of the season.
"(My season) is going pretty good. I'm really happy that I made it to the Finals and honestly that was my goal," she said. "I just want to do my personal best (at the Junior Grand Prix Final).
After the Junior Grand Prix Final, Liu will be competing at the U.S. Championships, and remains focused on doing her best.
"I honestly just want to skate clean programs," she said.
Despite her immense talent and accomplishments to date, Liu remains humble and attributes her success to her father, Arthur Liu, and her coach Laura Lipensky. Above all, skating remains fun for her – she noted that she enjoys pretty much everything about the sport.
"I like jumps, I like spins, and I like gliding," she explained.
As for long term goals, despite the fact that she is not eligible to compete internationally at the senior level until the 2021-2022 season, she has a goal not unlike most skaters.
"I want to go to the Olympics."
If she keeps performing the way she has, she has a promising chance to get her wish.
