Alysa Liu Is Skating Again — figure skating free skate puts reigning world champion in medal position

Milano — Alysa Liu’s comeback story has reached its most visible chapter: the 20-year-old reigning world champion, who stepped away from the sport as a teenager, heads into the Olympic women’s free skate in third place and will skate third to last at 4: 32 p. m. ET. Her presence in medal contention is the result of both technical prowess and a conscious decision to control the terms of her return.

She returned on her terms

Liu’s path back to elite competition was driven less by conventional coaching decisions than by a personal overhaul. After stepping away from competition at 16 and taking roughly two years away from the ice, she told those closest to her she would come back only if she could run her own show. That meant choosing coaches, training rhythms and even what to eat and wear on her own terms.

Those changes followed an earlier period of intense parental management. Her father had overseen every detail of her development from a young age — travel to top coaches, detailed practice demands and interventions when he thought standards slipped. The split was difficult: he has said it hurt to be sidelined — and she has said reclaiming autonomy was the only way she could love the sport again. On the competition ice in Milan, that freedom showed. In warm-ups Liu smiled, waved to friends, applauded fellow skaters and pointed to family in the stands as she flew by.

That refurbished relationship with skating has not dulled her ambitions. She has described herself as more than just a competitor: the director of her own performance. With that mindset she delivered a short program the judges rewarded enough to place her third heading into the long program.

Free skate schedule, standings and the U. S. picture

The women’s free skate began at 1: 00 p. m. ET, and Liu is slotted to take the ice at 4: 32 p. m. ET, third to last in the running order. She sits behind a pair of Japanese skaters — Ami Nakai and Kaori Sakamoto — and carries the possibility of becoming the first American woman in two decades to win an individual Olympic medal in women’s figure skating.

The American contingent experienced a spectrum of outcomes on short program day. Isabeau Levito delivered a clean short that placed her eighth overall, while Amber Glenn’s short proved difficult: she finished 13th overall and is scheduled to skate her free program at 2: 42 p. m. ET. Glenn’s struggles underlined the mental and technical volatility that can reshuffle the standings in a single long program.

Technically, the free skate will be decided by two scores: the technical elements score, which rewards jumps, spins and step sequences, and the program components score, which evaluates composition, presentation and skating skills. Liu’s combination of high-end jumps — she was an early prodigy who landed the triple axel competitively as a young teenager — and a refreshed, more relaxed presentation gives her a clear path to leverage both halves of the scoring sheet.

For Liu the stakes are not limited to medals. She has repeatedly emphasized presence and enjoyment over podium fixation. She said she would be content regardless of final placement, framing the Games as part of a larger personal narrative in which she is author and lead actor. That tone — equal parts defiant and buoyant — has been a throughline of her return.

Thursday’s free skate will resolve whether that personal reclamation translates into Olympic hardware. For the U. S. team it is a day of contrasting storylines: a reigning world champion skating with a newly asserted autonomy, a young teammate delivering a calm clean skate, and another skater fighting to recover from a bruising short program. The final results will reveal which narrative prevails at the end of a long competitive week in Milan.