Name: Free Expression: American Sweetheart Alysa Liu
Uploaded: 2026-02-25T22:24:00Z
Duration: 6 min 23 s
Description: Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, Alysa Liu, proved that the best way to win is to do it on your own terms. Free Ex’s Emma Camp and Mary Julia Koch discuss how Liu has redefined the modern athlete: balancing hard work, joy and patriotism.

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Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, Alysa Liu, proved that the best way to win is to do it on your own terms. Free Ex’s Emma Camp and Mary Julia Koch discuss how Liu has redefined the modern athlete: balancing hard work, joy and patriotism. Photo: Ranjith Kumar/GEPA/ZUMA

https://m.wsj.net/video/20260226/2c121623-a85b-4d31-92d7-8f21c6dae691/3/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, Alysa Liu, proved that the best way to win is to do it on your own terms. Free Ex’s Emma Camp and Mary Julia Koch discuss how Liu has redefined the modern athlete: balancing hard work, joy and patriotism.

Free Expression: American Sweetheart Alysa Liu

I'm Emma Camp. I'm joined by my colleague Mary Julia Koch. We both wrote articles recently about gold medal-winning figure skater Alysa Liu. We both love her, and so we decided to have a chat about her and what she represents for Gen Z.

So I can't stop watching clips of Alysa Liu's performance on Thursday.

Emma: Oh, neither can I.

Mary: I mean, she's radiating joy.

Emma: Well, we watched it live together.

We did watch it live in the office.

So I was watching it live on my computer, and you went up to join me, and we were watching her, and I think I was like, every time she would jump up in the air, I would, like, hold my breath. And then she hit it, and it was so good. And she would had this, like, big smile on her face. It was awesome. I think afterward, I was like, "I need to lie down."

What stood out from it was that, in contrast to so many performances in the Olympics, in ice skating in particular, she didn't look like she was struggling. She didn't look like she was, you know, under overwhelming pressure.

She was having a good time.

Mary: She was having time of her life.

Literally, right before the scores came in, she said to her coaches like, "Oh, that performance was better than any score I could've gotten," which is, like, what a class act. She both represents what it means to work hard, but also to play hard.

Yeah, and there's a quote that stuck out to me in the lead up to the Olympics when she was practicing her triple axel. She kept falling to the ice, pounding on the ice again and again. And every time she said, "One more time, let's try again." And she explained afterward in an interview that it's because for her, competition isn't the goal, the training is the goal. She said that she enjoys the struggle, the struggle is what makes her feel alive.

I love her attitude. And I think it is so important to remember that skating wasn't always joyous for her.

Yeah.

So she was this child prodigy, and then she retired. And she later said in an interview, I forget the exact quote, but it was basically like, "I was feeling stuck. I wasn't feeling like this was working for me anymore." She took two years off. And then she decided to come back. And her coaches tried to talk her out of it. They said she was too old, which is insane 'cause she was 18. But she came back, and she said like, "I'm gonna do this on my own terms," right, "No one is gonna micromanage me." I think she even said like, "No one's gonna tell me what I can and cannot eat. No one's gonna starve me. I'm gonna fuel myself like an athlete." You know, she's like, "I'm gonna pick my own program music." Like, she won because she was in control.

Mary: Mm-hmm.

And I think that's such a powerful message for a sport that often thrives in, like, very young, easily manipulated athletes.

Her example will fundamentally change not only figure skating, but the Olympics.

Totally. I mean, it's about avoiding burnout. I think figure skating is becoming a sport for adult women again. The silver medalist, Kaori Sakamoto, I wanna say she's 26, Amber Glenn is 25. And I think that isn't because the women in their mid-20s are, like, suddenly discovering how to do quadruple jumps, it's because of very deliberate changes in the sport, primarily to raise the minimum age for being in the Olympics and figure skating to 17. It was 15 previously.

Yeah, the point you made about burnout, it's not just elite competition. There's this wild stat that I mentioned in my article, which is that 70% of young people in sports, they quit by the time they're 13. And that's because of the intense pressure they feel to be the best. And if they feel that they're not gonna go to college for it or go professional, there's a sense of, "What's the point of trying?" And so I think that perfectionism is stripping a lot of people of the joy of just doing a sport for the sake of sport.

Yeah, it sounds counterintuitive but I think the joy with which Alysa Liu skates, you know, this has been brought over again, her joy, her relaxation, her drive to perform I think actually leaves a framework for staying in sports even if you're never going to be an elite athlete. Alysa Liu would've been happy whether or not she got the gold. And it's like, "Okay, maybe I'm not the best skater at my rink or whatever, but it makes me really happy." And I think it leaves this framework for people to do things that make them happy, whether or not they're the best at it.

I think another point we should discuss on the Alysa Liu front is the backlash that she's seen from the left online where people are saying-

A counterintuitive backlash. Or it's like a backlash to the fact that there isn't a right-wing backlash.

Yes. People are saying conservatives will be furious once they realize that Alysa Liu is woke. There was a photo posted by Amber Glenn of she and Alysa Liu. The line was, "They hate to see two woke bitches winning."

Shocker, a 20-year-old UCLA student. Who cares, right?

Mary: Who cares?

And I think that has largely been the reaction from the right, like-

She said-

And I don't care.

that she's participated in protests in the past. That she-

Right.

You know, thinks that immigration's an important thing. Obviously her father's a Chinese immigrant, I get that. But she didn't bring her politics into her performance.

No.

She didn't bring it into any of the press conferences.

She was skating with that American flag.

Mary: Totally.

She was standing for the pledge, like American hero, honestly, right, like-

Right, and when you see her take the top stand on the podium and she has her hand over her heart and a gold medal over her neck, you are not thinking about her politics. You're thinking that is an American athlete standing for America. We won. Like, there's a sense of patriotism and that shouldn't be coded as right wing-

Right, we really-

Mary: in any way.

shouldn't care about athletes' political views 'cause that's not why we support them. And I think it's so important to consider that her father is an immigrant from China who is a pro-democracy protester, who came to the United States, became a lawyer, started a family. And, you know, contrasting Alysa with, say, Eileen Gu-

Mary: Totally, yeah.

who was successfully bought out by the CCP. The Chinese government tried to recruit Alysa to skate for them in 2022, and her dad was like, "Hell no." Part of what makes Alysa Liu this, like, incredible, I think patriotic figure is all that her dad went to to become an American.

Mary: Mm-hmm.

And, you know, she is far from the only US figure skater whose parents survived communism. All three of the men skaters are children of Soviet-born figure skaters. There's been a very long trend of immigrant parents, particularly Asian Americans, going into figure skating. These children of immigrants make our country great and their parents make our country great.

So I wanna show you this letter that's going viral right now. Alysa Liu wrote it to her future self when she was 13.

I saw that. It's so cute. Oh my gosh.

She said, "Did you do those big things you dreamed about? Did you win gold in 2022? Did you stay on the podium for every nationals? Did you ever travel to Italy? I know, those are big leap-of-faith-type things. But, hey, every jump starts somewhere." That is something I wanna look at anytime I'm afraid to do something.

It's so sweet. I'm her biggest fan. America's sweetheart-

Agree.

In my opinion, yeah.