The 2026 Winter Olympics Milano Cortina officially commenced on February 6, 2026, and Team USA’s Alysa Liu started off the competition on a high note. Since the age of 16, Alysa has taken the skating world by storm, winning numerous events and making history with her ambitious jumps along the way. Find out more about the prodigy right here!
Born August 8, 2005, in Clovis, California, Alysa began figure skating with the help of her father at the tender age of five. Soon afterwards, her father found a coach for Alysa in former competitive figure skater, Laura Lipensky. With Laura’s help, Alysa became the youngest skater in history and the third American woman ever to land a triple axel in an international competition by the age of 12!
Alysa’s career has already been blessed with a U.S. National Championship in 2019 and 2020, making her the youngest woman to ever win one at the age of 13. She also became the youngest person to win two senior national titles at just 14 years old. As a U.S. junior champion, she won three straight years in a row. She took fourth in the 2021 U.S. Championships.
In her first junior international competition in August 2019, Alysa became the first junior American woman to land a quadruple jump in competition and was the first woman in history to successfully complete a triple axel and a quadruple jump in the same program. This was all before the young star had even turned 14!
Even though she was forced to withdraw from the U.S. Figure Skating Championship because if a positive Covid test, Alysa’s previous performances, including a hard-fought third place after the short program, clinched her one of the three spots on the U.S. Winter Olympic team. As for how she fared in quarantine while the rest of the skaters competed, Alysa told USA Today, “I watched some Netflix. That’s it. That’s all I’ve been doing. And I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow or anything. I haven’t had time to talk to my team yet.”
