Alysa Liu’s comeback has made a huge step into a brand new era for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games.
For many years Figure Skating has been a well respected sport and if you have ever watched anything related to figure skating in the late 2010’s then there’s a high chance you probably have heard of the legendary figure skaters such as Yuzuru Hanyu or Alexandra Trusova who broke records and made history in the figure skating community. and if you were a huge fan of the sport then, you probably also heard about the well known famous Anime that was popular around 2016: Yuri on Ice (2016) . For a lot of us, those small things were what brought us together in a lot of ways, and that’s what honestly got me into the whole figure skating hobby in my elementary school years. But in recent years, we have begun to see a decrease in popularity in figure skating. Although it didn’t die completely, it just lost major audiences and publicity.
The controversies over scoring, judges, and even understanding the sport are mainly what killed figure skating, and honestly, I don’t blame people. Figure skating was such a controversial sport, with new problems popping up every few years. One of the most popular ones was the infamous Tonya Harding incident back in 1994.
Even so, at the end of the day many have come to love the sport not just because of jumps and triples axels. but because of how a lot of the skaters express themselves in recent years. Figure skating has suddenly become rapidly famous and somehow, Alysa Liu being the new Olympic Champion for the recently-completed winter games has revived the figure skating community.
Her new beginning
The 2026 figure skating Milano Cortina has been by far the most unique season, with returning members and even new eras that came up,
One of the prime examples so far is the gold Olympic medalist Alysa Liu. Her return to figure skating was an inspiring moment for all of us. Hearing her story about how she retired from competitive skating at 16 due to burnout and the intense demands, we all expected that she would stay retired forever, like a lot of young competitive figures have done when facing the same issues as her. But she did not stay retired, and instead proved everyone wrong about that idea. A few years later, around 2024, she posted a short video on Instagram reading “Back on ice”.
In an article by TIME’s Alyssa Liu quoted that “Quitting was definitely, and still to this day, one of my best decisions ever,” she said at the Team USA Media Summit in October. “I just had to try a bunch of other things, and at the time, I thought the only way for me to do that was to leave because I really felt trapped and stuck.” She worked hard, Competed in three major senior figure skating competitions and then went on to compete in the winter olympics, where she won two gold medals.
Her “alternative” aesthetic is mostly what sparked a lot of conversation and proved that Figure Skating is not just being perfect with softness and graceful outfits, but you can express yourself however you want to on the ice without following strict protocols on how you need to impress yourself. Her stories and achievements have brought a new light and new hope, and maybe we can all pray that we can see more of this change in the next few years and prove that figure skating is much more than jumps and loops. It is also about the artistry behind it.
