The Smiley Superstar

As figure skating emerges from the tandem backflip panda-monium of the 2026 Olympics it’s spectacularly clear that Alysa Liu is the defining skater of Milano Cortina. She’s inspiring spontaneous murals. TMZ and JustJared are gassing up their site traffic by jamming her name into headlines. Discussion of her costumes, piercings, and surprise tattoo are cascading from figure skating fan spaces into mainstream conversation. Vogue is discussing her halo highlights and running her picture next to Rosalía and Caroline Polachek. Figure skating’s favourite Alt Girl is ascending.

I’ve been involved with figure skating ever since I laced up my CCM starter skates in 1991. If there was a Venn Diagram covering the categories “Landed an Axel,” “Performed Diamond Dances” and “Watched Barbara Fusar Poli Melt Maurizio Margaglio’s Face Off on Live Television,” I would be in the middle. I am a figure skating fossil, and within my sedimentary memory I cannot recall a skater breaking containment in the last 25 years like Alysa Liu. This moment is startling.

Figure Skating’s Race to Escape Extinction

Skating was already a niche sport but it became a dying star after a judging scandal cracked its reputation beyond PR repair in 2002. The introduction of the ISU Judging System (IJS) brought in scaled, points-based scoring and whisked away the 6.0 era, taking many mainstream North American fans with it. Your volleyball-playing cousin could understand a perfect 6.0 but would scowl at a factored Program Components Score—what is this New Math garbage? While outlining the many factors contributing to figure skating’s decline could fill a whole series of essays (hmmm), the sport has spent the last 20 years struggling for positive attention.

The International Skating Union (ISU) knows this and is desperate to stave off extinction. The ISU is reportedly considering everything to salvage the sport’s appeal, from extending the Grand Prix series and adding a jump-free Artistic Program, to requiring skaters to choreograph two different free programs and switch them up mid-season. These ideas aren’t new. Back in the Y2K Days, skaters used to perform two free skates at the Grand Prix Final. Splitting events into “Technical” and “Artistic” programs has been proposed multiple times. Cobbling all of these ideas together and lashing them to Labubu tie-ins and genAI social content is a poor answer to figure skating’s problems. The ISU is a desperate dinosaur huddling in a cave hoping to ride out the comet heading its way.

At least, that was the case up until about 8 days ago, when the comet appeared to swerve left. Now figure skating has the means to survive thanks to the popularity of an athlete who can land triple triple combos and flash a frenulum piercing to a rapt audience. Now the climate has changed: Figure skating is the the Alt Girl’s arena. People are discovering the sport via the golden aura of Alysa Liu.

Which Way to Victory?

Alysa’s success has revealed both an appetite for joy and a deep conflict about how to succeed in figure skating. It turns out that some people watch a young woman perform from a place of personal power and autonomy and feel threatened, not inspired. There are also people who aspire to Alysa Liu’s success but are deeply skeptical of her route to those results. Loudest of all are the skeptics keen to point out that Alysa won the Olympics largely without competition from Eteri Tutberidze-trained skaters. Eteri’s brutal methods won her rink 3 women’s singles Olympic titles in a row, but under a pall of abuse allegations and a doping scandal. Despite these obvious concerns, the same skeptics argue Kaori Sakamoto’s three world titles are also a consequence of a technically diminished field. If Eteri’s hostages—er, students—competed this Olympic cycle, Kaori and the rest of women’s field would have been lucky to scrap for pewter medals. Apparently.

While the terms may change over time, the fight about which way leads to victory is an old one. The way to success in figure skating appeared well established: start young, stay hungry, and say nothing. This logic stems from an assumption that elite athletics is based on pain, suffering, and abnegation. But what if that system doesn’t work the way you assumed? What happens if you anchor yourself to the belief that success comes from honouring your own health, expression, and priorities?

Well, that sounds like heresy of a lot of people, both in figure skating and sports at large. Suggesting there is another way to win is athletic apostasy and a renunciation of the Temple of Sweat and Tears. The style in which Alysa won an Olympic gold medal challenges figure skating’s belief system in the same way Galileo challenged Earth’s place in the solar system—and it’s disturbing people in the same way. Her example is so powerful because it suggests victory can be a consequence of positive choices, not just a function of suffering.

But Alysa did not just ride an aesthetic all the way an Olympic title, and we do a tremendous disservice to her by implying that she did. In a 60 Minutes interview released just before the Olympics, she declared, “I love struggling, actually. It makes me feel alive.” No elite athlete coasts to the top, but an elite athlete’s understanding of a slack day is also very different from the rest of us. Halo-dyed hair alone did not get Alysa to this point, but neither did disordered eating, throttled puberty, or abusive training tactics. The Temple of Sweat and Tears method won her 6th place at the 2022 Olympics, a World bronze medal, and total burnout. Radical authenticity coupled with hard work won her World and Olympic titles. If proof is in results, it’s hard to argue with the gold medal around Alysa Liu’s neck.

Alysa isn’t the only skater to find success this way, either! I wrote after the women’s free skate that Alysa is treading the path Kaori Sakamoto opened up over three Olympic cycles and is defending against the same criticism levelled against Kaori, too. The perfect alignment of the ISU raising competition age minimums, the Russian competition ban, and the growing awareness that starving athletes is counterproductive and cruel has created an environment where we can finally see, perhaps for the first time in decades, fully developed athletes competing in women’s figure skating. This version of figure skating is competitive, exciting, and engaging in a way watching terrified children hurtling toward early hip replacements is not.

When an audience senses that a performance is authentic they can’t help but cheer. I’ve lost track of the number of people who rarely or never watch figure skating who now profess total love and admiration for Alysa Liu. They’re watching her programs on repeat and talking about it because her performance touches on something vital and irrepressibly human. Alysa radiates vitality, and it’s why she’s broken out of figure skating coverage and is generating headlines and content everywhere. I genuinely believe that people are craving authenticity and relief right now, and to see someone excel in their chosen pursuit without self-loathing or recrimination? That’s golden.

So, has Alysa already saved figure skating or is that happening next week?

It’s not Alysa Liu’s work to transform the reputation of figure skating. It would also be unwise to merely copy her methods and expect the same results without matching her level of self-awareness and commitment. There’s nothing flippant about this person save her actual triple flip.

Whether or not Alysa’s popularity bolsters figure skating’s waning fortunes depends on the ISU and U.S. Figure Skating. If they can competently manage the stupendous gift of goodwill and free publicity Alysa handed them this Olympics, there’s a great chance to capture a fresh generation of athletes in the way South Korea did after Yuna Kim, or Japan after Shizuka Arakawa and Mao Asada. Perhaps we are a mere 17 years away from another Alysa rising up a la Mao Shimada at this year’s Junior Worlds.

Leaving the question of generational namesakes aside, I do wonder what lesson figure skating—it’s athletes, officials, and fans—will learn from Alysa Liu’s victory. Will the phenomenon stop at a hair dye trend and a sudden fashion for twirly gold costumes, or will this change in how figure skating approaches the cult of training? I’m not about to declare a victory for mental health awareness or wellness culture in figure skating just yet—we have far too many monsters yet remaining in the sport.

But I do hope.

I hope that we see generations of figure skaters mature into adult competitors rather than becoming spent matches by they time they turn 20. I hope that athletes embracing Alysa’s example—and Kaori, and Amber!—are so successful their combined victories drive Alexander Zhulin into a cave where he can never be heard from again. I hope that when we see a skater perform from a place of authenticity and joy, no matter their collection of piercings or costume choices, we are awed and inspired. If figure skating can recognize and replicate the power of that authenticity, then we may be well on our way to renewal.