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Alysa Liu is ready for her second Winter Olympics
The 20-year-old tells PEOPLE she is "more excited" than ever to compete, after taking a break following the 2022 Beijing Olympics
"I was checked out. I was just there for the Olympic experience," she says about being a member of Team USA four years ago
Alysa Liuhas been here before — but not like this.
The U.S. figure skater, 20, will make her return to the Olympic stage next month with a newfound drive and sense of purpose after the shocking announcement following the 2022 Beijing Games that she would retire from the sport entirely.
Liu's unexpected announcement caught many around the skating world off guard, since she was seen a rising star in the sport at just 16 years old. The California native had already medaled at the World Figure Skating Championships and was only expected to get better.
But after more than a year away from ice skating, Liu now tells PEOPLE exclusively that she's "more excited" about figure skating than ever before — especially the last time the Olympics came around.
"I was not there for the skating at all in my head," Liu tells PEOPLE exclusively, looking back four years ago. "I was checked out. I was just there for the Olympic experience."
But as Liu has explained in a number of media appearances in recent weeks, she had grown exhausted of the all-consuming lifestyle Olympic-level figure skating asks of its competitors and wanted a chance to step back and live what she described toNBC Newsas a "normal, teenage-girl, older-sister life."
"I really had nothing going on with my life, you know? Just training," Liu said in a recent interview with theAssociated Press. "I would live at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado, in a dorm by myself. I would eat their food. I went to the rink, skated, ate lunch there, skated some more. Went back to the dorm. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't see anything. I was just there," she said. "And so all that, I was like, 'Skating is not worth it.' Like, this is not worth it.' "
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By 2022 in Beijing, Liu says she was already over figure skating in her mind.
So after finishing short of the podium in 2022, Liu moved out of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado and moved on from figure skating. Or so she thought.
For nearly more than a year, Liu returned to a semi-normal teenage life: She went on vacation, spent time with family, graduated high school and began attending UCLA, where she now studies psychology. But during a 2024 ski trip with her family to Lake Tahoe, Liu found herself falling back in love with the adrenaline rush of winter sports, as she told NBC Sports, and felt a pull back to get back on the ice.
It wasn't until early 2025 when Liu felt like she was fully invested in the sport for the first time.
"That's when I was like, 'I'm doing this for real,' " she tells PEOPLE with a reawakened excitement for the upcoming Winter Games in Italy.
Liu says living her life and "doing a ton of other things," including "trying out every hobby in existence" made her realize that her true calling was figure skating all along. "It made me realize what I like to do," Liu says. "A lot of aspects in figure skating actually follow in line with my interests."
One of which includes fashion design, something she's taken the reins of herself after years of letting others consult and pick her outfits for her. The UCLA student says she'll find herself up until 2 a.m. some nights after practice working out ideas for new costumes to wear on the ice. "In figure skating, we have these gorgeous dresses and I love to design them," Liu says. "I work really closely with my dress designer on them, so that part of figure skating I like."
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Liu's redetermined grasp on figure skating has already proved fruitful with a stunning gold medal finish at the 2025 World Championships.
"She hates this term, but we almost call it Alysa 2.0," Phillip DiGuglielmo, Liu's coach, told NBC. "It's like a reboot, in a way." Liu's "reboot" already has critics listing her as a top contender to medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, alongside a strong Team USA that also includes Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito.
Liu says her confidence level feels "more or less the same" as it did when she first stepped into the Olympic spotlight at 16 years old.
"But I'm more excited for the figure skating part of it all now," she says, thinking ahead to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Gold or not, for Liu, simply getting back to the point of excitement has been an achievement far beyond what she might have imagined just four years ago.
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come topeople.comto check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan-Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.
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