U.S. figure skating star announces her retirement

Alysa Liu is retiring from competitive figure skating.

Two weeks after winning a bronze medal in the World Figure Skating Championship, ALysa Liu, one of the U.S.'s brightest figure skating stars, has decided to hang up her skates and announced she is  "going to be moving on with my life."

At just 16 years of age, it was widely believed that she would be one of the U.S.'s highest hopes for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Instead, the Richmond, California youngster surprised the figure skating world when she announced Saturday via social media that she is "satisfied" with her skating career and would retire to study and become a regular teenager.

"Heyyyyy so I'm here to announce that I am retiring from skating," she wrote ion her Instagram account.

"I started skating when I was 5 so that's about 11 years on the ice and it's been an insane 11 years. A lot of good and a lot of bad but yk [you know] that's just how it is. I've made so many friends, and so so sooo many good memories that I'll have for the rest of my life," she continued.

"I honestly never thought I would've accomplished as much as I did LMAOO I'm so happy. I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone. Now that I'm finally done with my goals in skating I'm going to be moving on with my life."

Liu's retirement comes after her father revealed last month that she had been embroiled in an apparent Chinese spying scandal. However, there is no indication if her retirement is linked her father's political activism. He left China in 1989 after taking part in the Tianamen Square protests and subsequent massacre of the protestors by the Chinese government.

Liu's retirement comes under a month after her father revealed that she had been embroiled in an apparent Chinese spying scandal in which the Chinese government was accused of trying to intimidate Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. Arthur Liu was informed by the FBI prior to the Beijing Olympics that he was one of the people targeted by China.

During the Winter Games held in Beijing last February, Alysa Liu was provided with protection by the U.S. government because of the spying allegations.

During her career, Liu won two senior U.S. national championship titles, becoming the youngest athlete to win the women's crown when she did so in 2019 when she was just 13. She retained her title in 2020, prior to the pandemic, which – coupled with injuries and a growth spurt – slowed Liu down.

She won Team USA an additional Olympic spot for Beijing 2022 at the Nebelhorn Trophy last October and, although she had to withdraw from the 2022 nationals after contracting Covid, was named to the Olympic squad.

Liu finished seventh in Beijing, opting against attempting the triple Axel or any quadruple jumps, which she had previously landed in Junior Grand Prix competition. The full results of the women's singles event in Beijing remain provisional depending on the outcome of the World Skating Federation on the Russian woman skater using illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Her final competition was the World Championships last month in Montpellier, France, where she improved from fifth after the short program to win bronze.

Speaking after that medal, Liu said of the past two years: "I lost a lot of my motivation. I was barely going to the rink, not doing off-ice [workouts]. Then I grew a lot and got injured quite a bit. I had an on-and-off injury and that really slowed me down. Honestly, I have no idea how I got my motivation back and got to this point."

This season was Liu's first year at the senior level. She previously won two ISU Challenger Series golds, two ISU Junior Grand Prix golds, a Junior Grand Prix Final silver, and a World Junior Championships bronze medal.

"this skating thing has taught me a lot more about life than i anticipated," Liu concluded her lengthy explanation on social media.

"i’m really glad i skated."

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