Alysa Liu is taking the entire 2026-27 figure skating season off, and she is not retiring. The Olympic champion won gold in Milan on 19 February 2026 and announced the competitive break in an Instagram post six months later. She plans to return for the 2027-28 season.
Is Alysa Liu Retiring Again?
No. Liu has said explicitly that this is a one-season pause, not the end of her career.
The distinction matters because she has done this before. In April 2022, at 16, Liu walked away from competitive skating entirely and stayed away for almost two years. That announcement used the word retirement. This one does not.
Her August 2026 post ended with a line that leaves little room for interpretation: she told followers she would be back, and named the season she intends to return in. US Figure Skating has not announced any change to her national team status.
The wording also fits the timing. Liu posted during the late-August window when skaters traditionally reveal their new competitive programs for the coming season, and she used the moment to explain why there would be no programs to announce. That is the behaviour of someone managing a competitive calendar, not leaving one.
What Did Alysa Liu Say About Sitting Out the Season?
Liu framed the year off as a deliberate reset for her skating rather than a withdrawal from the sport.
She made the announcement in an Instagram post on 25 August 2026, which NBC Sports reported the same day and outlets worldwide picked up over the following 24 hours. “While people are announcing programs, imma take this time to announce that I will not be competing this season,” she wrote. “I always want to challenge myself in new ways, so my artistry & skating can evolve.”
She added that she would use the time to “recalibrate, fine-tune things & whatnot,” and closed with: “So fear not, I’ll be back, & in the meantime I’ll be rooting for my teammates near & far.”
According to reporting on the announcement, she intends to keep training through the break, working on spins, jumps and skating technique rather than stepping off the ice.
How This Break Differs From Her 2022 Retirement
The 2022 exit was an ending she did not plan to reverse; the 2026 break came with a return date attached.
| April 2022 | August 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 16 | 21 |
| Word used | Retirement | Not competing this season |
| Return named | No | Yes, the 2027-28 season |
| Position in sport | World bronze medallist | Reigning Olympic and former world champion |
| Stated reason | Time with family, school, life away from the rink | Artistic development and technical fine-tuning |
| Time away | Almost two years | One season, by her own plan |
The second difference is who is making the decision. Liu has spoken since her comeback about choosing her own coaches and setting her own terms, an arrangement that did not exist in the first phase of her career, when her father managed her team.
What Happened Between the Olympic Gold and the Announcement?
Liu spent the six months after Milan dealing with sudden global recognition, and she skipped the World Championships because of it.
In March 2026 she withdrew from the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague. Speaking about the decision, she cited scheduling pressure and lost training time: “There’s so many commitments I have and activities that are overlapping with worlds, and also I don’t have much time training.” She also described the scale of her new profile as “definitely an adjustment.”
The homecoming itself was warm. Thousands attended a rally for her outside Oakland City Hall, where she told the crowd she had lived in Oakland all her life and could not be prouder to have represented the city on the biggest stage in her sport.
Between those events she also returned to university coursework in Los Angeles, several hundred miles from the rink where she trains. That split between campus, training and post-Olympic obligations is the practical context for a decision to clear a competitive season.
How Did Sudden Fame Affect Alysa Liu?
Liu has described her post-Olympic visibility as disruptive enough to raise safety concerns, and said so publicly within weeks of winning.
After flying home to the Bay Area, she wrote on her Instagram Story that a member of the public had followed her through Oakland airport and all the way to her vehicle. “Someone chased me to my car bruh,” she posted. “Please do not do that to me.” She also described people getting into her personal space during the arrival.
Her coach told a Bay Area public broadcaster in March 2026 that the team had discussed asking her home rink management to close the ice to the public during her sessions, because of the level of attention she was drawing. Liu herself put the change simply, calling the scale of her new profile an adjustment.
None of the reporting on the August announcement names the attention as the reason for the break, and Liu did not link the two herself. What is documented is that the two things happened in the same six-month window, and that she gave crowded commitments and thin training time as her reason for missing Prague in March.
Why Did Alysa Liu Retire in 2022 at Age 16?
Liu retired in April 2022 because she wanted a life outside the rink after eleven years in the sport.
She announced it on Instagram on 9 April 2022, weeks after winning bronze at the World Championships in Montpellier and finishing seventh in the women’s singles event at the Beijing Winter Olympics. She had been US national champion at 13 in 2019, the youngest in the event’s history, and won a second consecutive title in 2020.
The reasons given at the time centred on wanting to spend time with family and friends and to study. Her father, who managed her team and selected her coaches during that phase of her career, has since described the pressure of the period in blunt terms. Her first Olympics had also been an unusual experience: the Beijing Games ran under heavy COVID-era restrictions that limited athletes to a closed bubble.
By the time she stopped, Liu had already done things nobody in her country had done. At a Junior Grand Prix event in Lake Placid in 2019 she became the first woman to land a quadruple Lutz and a triple Axel in the same competitive program. She was 14.
The return came on 1 March 2024, when she posted a video of herself training jumps. She has said the decision traced back to a skiing trip with friends, when a stop at an ice rink revived her interest in the sport. Her longtime coach was initially sceptical that she meant it, and agreed to take her back only once it was clear she did.
She competed again in October 2024, at the Budapest Trophy, and won the World Championship in Boston on 28 March 2025 in front of a home crowd, becoming the first American woman to take that title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006. She went into that event as the lowest-ranked of the three American women in the field and beat Kaori Sakamoto, who had won the previous three world titles. It was less than a year after her first competition back.
What Did Alysa Liu Win at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
Liu won two gold medals at Milan Cortina 2026: the team event and the women’s singles.
| Event | Date | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Team event | 8 February 2026 | Gold with the United States |
| Women’s short program | 17 February 2026 | 3rd, 76.59 points |
| Women’s free skate | 19 February 2026 | 150.20 points |
| Women’s singles final | 19 February 2026 | Gold, 226.79 points |
She was third after the short program and moved up on the strength of the free skate. Kaori Sakamoto of Japan took silver on 224.90 points and Ami Nakai, also of Japan, took bronze on 219.16, putting Liu’s winning margin at 1.89 points.
The singles title was the first won by an American woman since Sarah Hughes at Salt Lake City in 2002, a gap of 24 years. It also ended a two-decade drought for American women in individual Olympic figure skating medals of any colour.
Liu was coached through the Games by Phillip DiGuglielmo, working with Massimo Scali, and trains in Oakland, California. She grew up in the Bay Area and has skated there for essentially her whole career, including through the comeback.
The result completed an unusual sequence: retire at 16, return at 18, win the world title at 19, win Olympic gold at 20. Very few skaters have compressed a full career arc, an exit and a second career into that span.
Which Competitions Will Alysa Liu Miss in 2026-27?
Sitting out the season means Liu skips the entire international calendar from October 2026 through March 2027.
- The ISU Grand Prix series, which opens in Angers, France on 23 October 2026 and runs through six events to late November.
- The Grand Prix Final in Chongqing, China, scheduled for 10 to 13 December 2026.
- The US Championships, the national event she won in 2019 and 2020.
- The World Championships in Tampere, Finland, set for 15 to 21 March 2027.
Combined with her withdrawal from Prague in March 2026, that means Liu will have gone two full seasons without appearing at a World Championships by the time the 2027 event finishes.
Where Is Alysa Liu Now?
As of 27 August 2026, Liu is the reigning Olympic champion in women’s singles, is not entered in any competition for the 2026-27 season, and is studying at the University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA has publicly identified her as a psychology major. She turned 21 on 8 August 2026, three weeks before the announcement.
Nothing in her statement or in subsequent reporting points to injury, illness or a dispute with her federation. On the available record, the break is what she said it was: a season set aside to work on the parts of her skating that competition does not leave room for. The most recent verified development in her career is the 25 August 2026 announcement itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Alysa Liu Retired?
No. Liu is sitting out the 2026-27 season but has said she plans to return for 2027-28. She previously retired in April 2022 and came back in March 2024, but she did not use the word retirement in her August 2026 announcement.
Why Is Alysa Liu Not Competing in the 2026-27 Season?
She said she wants time to develop her artistry and fine-tune her skating. In her Instagram post on 25 August 2026 she described the year as a chance to “recalibrate” rather than a step away from the sport, and indicated she would keep training.
When Will Alysa Liu Return to Competition?
She has named the 2027-28 season as her intended return. No specific event or date has been announced as of 27 August 2026.
How Many Olympic Gold Medals Does Alysa Liu Have?
Two, both from Milan Cortina 2026. She won the team event on 8 February 2026 and the women’s singles on 19 February 2026 with a total score of 226.79 points.
Why Did Alysa Liu Retire in 2022?
She announced her retirement on 9 April 2022, at 16, after finishing seventh at the Beijing Olympics and winning world bronze in Montpellier. She cited wanting time with family and friends and to study after eleven years in the sport.
Where Does Alysa Liu Train?
She trains in Oakland, California, under coach Phillip DiGuglielmo, working alongside Massimo Scali. She grew up in the Bay Area and has skated in Oakland throughout her career.
