Alysa Liu’s rise from teenage prodigy to Olympic champion hasn’t just been about her relentless quadruple jumps and fearless artistry on ice — it’s also a story shaped by the guidance of her coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali. The Bay Area–born figure skating star first worked with the duo earlier in her career and returned to them during her comeback from retirement, forming a coaching partnership that supported her historic win at the 2026 Winter Olympics. DiGuglielmo and Scali have helped Liu refine her technique and performance, blending technical discipline with creative expression as she competed on the world’s biggest stages.
Learn more about Liu’s coaches and their working relationship below.
Liu first began working with Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali in 2020, when her father replaced her longtime coach Laura Lipetsky with the duo as part of a broader coaching change. Scali had already been part of her team since 2019, and DiGuglielmo joined that coaching partnership at the same time.
After stepping away from skating in 2022, Liu returned to training with DiGuglielmo and Scali in 2024 when she decided to make her comeback on her own terms.
Liu’s father, Arthur Liu, made coaching decisions for much of her early career. In 2021, just after a competition in Japan, he dismissed DiGuglielmo and Scali so that Alysa could move to Colorado Springs to train under a different coaching group (Christy Krall, Drew Meekins, and Viktor Pfeifer).
This kind of coaching turnover was part of Arthur’s hands-on management style, which has included multiple changes over the years. Both DiGuglielmo and Scali have spoken about being fired “once in person and a second time via text” during periods when Arthur was directing coaching choices.
As of her 2024–25 comeback and through her 2026 Winter Olympics campaign, Alysa Liu reunited with and continues to work with Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali. She chose to reconnect with them when she returned to competitive skating under her own leadership rather than leaving her coaching decisions solely to her father.
