Alysa Liu explained the real reason behind her decision not to compete in the 2026 ISU Figure Skating World Championship later this month.
Fans hoped to see the 20-year-old figure skater return to competition, which will take place from March 24 to 29 in Prague, Czech Republic.
But the Olympic gold winner confirmed that her plans did not include a trip to Prague.
Highlights
- Fans expected to see Alysa Liu return to the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships in Prague.
- The 20-year-old figure skater explained why she wasn’t competing in a recent interview.
- She also addressed how she was going through an “adjustment” phase and dealing with becoming an overnight sensation.
- “It’s been crazy how much visibility I have right now,” she said.
Alysa Liu explained why she wasn’t competing in the 2026 ISU Figure Skating World Championship
Image credits: alysaxliu
Life took a whirlwind turn for Alysa Liu after she won two gold medals, one as a member of the team event and one in the women’s singles event, at the recent 2026 Winter Olympics.
Having briefly retired from the sport in 2022, she participated in the Italy-hosted games to mark her comeback and made history by being the first American woman in 24 years to win the women’s individual figure skating gold medal at the Olympics.
Image credits: Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images
The newly crowned Olympic champion confirmed that she won’t be competing at the upcoming World Figure Skating Championships.
During a Thursday interview, she explained that she wanted to compete but had “so many commitments” and “activities” overlapping with the dates.
“I don't have much time for training … I don’t think I would be able to put out my best performance,” she added.
The Olympic champion said she had “so many commitments” and “activities” overlapping with the dates of the upcoming competition
Image credits: Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Getty Images
The Team USA figure skater said she was happy that she got to give her best performance on “the biggest stage” and was keeping her eyes on the next season.
As she unexpectedly became an overnight sensation, the figure skater also addressed how she was going through an “adjustment” phase at the moment.
“It’s been crazy how much visibility I have right now. [I] would have never expected that, especially from a figure skater,” she said. “We don’t really blow up like that.”
Alysa reportedly had 300,000 followers on Instagram on the opening night of the Olympics. She currently has a fan following of 7.7 million, owing to her moment of Olympic glory.
She was forced to share a message on social media after recently landing in an airport and finding a crowd “waiting at the exit with cameras & things for [her] to sign.”
“All up in my personal space,” she wrote in an Instagram Story. “Someone chased me to my car bruh. Please do not do that to me.”
Her historic win marked her comeback to the sport after her brief retirement at the age of 16
Image credits: alysaxliu
Her historic Olympic win came after she decided to come out of her brief retirement and return to the ice.
The rising star said she had an “abnormal childhood,” where she grew up being the oldest of five children, all of whom were born to single dad Arthur Liu through surrogacy.
She was only 13 years old when she became the youngest US national champion ever and the first US woman in history to land three triple axels.
Image credits: KCRA 3
Carrying the weight of being called a “child prodigy,” she competed in the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2020 and finished in sixth position.
The then-16-year-old eventually announced that she was retiring from the sport.
“She became really unhappy,” Arthur told USA Today about his exhausted teen daughter’s decision to retire.
“She was just traumatized,” her father said. “She was suffering from PTSD and she wouldn't go near the ice rink”
Image credits: alysaxliu
“She avoided the ice rink at all costs. She's traumatized. She was just traumatized,” he added. “She was suffering from PTSD and she wouldn't go near the ice rink.”
After going a whole year without skating, Alysa took a ski trip in January, 2024, to Lake Tahoe, California, where she once again felt the adrenaline and rush of being on the ice.
She decided to put her professional skates back on, and she went back to training, making a remarkable comeback at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
Image credits: alysaxliu
Alysa and her father were also previously targeted in a spy operation, put in motion by the Chinese government to keep a check on pro-democracy dissidents.
Weeks after Alysa made her Olympic debut in Beijing in 2022, the US Justice Department charged five people for allegedly spying on them and others, on behalf of the Chinese government.
The five spies allegedly targeted US residents who had previously advocated for democracy in China. And Arthur was known to be a former activist who protested against the Chinese communist government following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The rising star previously acknowledged that she and her father were among those targeted by spies on behalf of the Chinese government
Image credits: Rolling Stone
Arthur later arrived in the US as a political refugee in his 20s and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he raised his five children alone.
Alysa called it a “little bit freaky and exciting” that she and her father were targets.
"Imagine finding that out at such a young age, I mean, like in a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like in some prank show?’” she told Fox News in 2022.
“Like, is this world real like I must be some movie character,” she continued. “But, I mean, it was like it made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days.”
Following her recent Olympic win, Alysa was given a fitting homecoming, with nearly 5,000 people gathering in front of Oakland’s city hall on Thursday, March 12, to celebrate her double-gold victory.
Mayor Barbara Lee presented her with the key to the city and said, “Every time she stepped on the ice, she carried the spirit of Oakland with her.”
Alysa held up the gold medals around her neck during the celebration and said, “What’s up, Oakland! This is for y’all.”
“She has nothing left to prove in the sport. Enjoy life, champ,” a fan commented online
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