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American figure skater Alyssa Liu is America’s last hope of winning an individual figure skating gold medal at the Cortina Olympics in Milan.
Liu has become a fan favorite for the United States this year, playing a key role in helping her country win gold in the team event following her dramatic comeback story. She has only just returned to the world stage after a brief retirement following her performance at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.
But there was a moment in her story that wasn’t just a feel-good sporting joy. There was a moment when she had to face the fear of geopolitical espionage.
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Alysa Liu of Team United States competes during the Women’s Single Skating – Short Program on day eleven of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at the Milano Ice Skating Arena on February 17, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
Just before her appearance at the 2022 Beijing Games, she and her father were the targets of a Chinese government espionage operation.
Her father, Arthur, fled China as a refugee decades earlier. But his past followed him, like his previous engagement in 1989 Tiananmen Square protests made him and his daughter the target of spies in 2022.
Liu called the experience “a little bit freaky and exciting.”
“You know what I mean? It’s so … unbelievable. You know what I mean, it’s crazy,” Liu previously told Pakinomist Digital at a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
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Alysa Liu of the United States performs her routine during the Figure Skating Women’s Singles Short Program at the Milano Ice Skating Arena at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games on February 17, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Tim Clayton/Getty Images)
“Like, imagine finding that out at such a young age, I mean, like in a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like on a prank show?’ Like, this world is really like I got to be a movie character. But I mean, it kind of made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days.”
One of the five men charged Wednesday with spying on Chinese dissidents living in the United States, Matthew Ziburis, allegedly contacted Arthur in November 2021, impersonating a USOPC official and asking for his and Liu’s passport numbers, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Ziburis allegedly traveled to California’s Bay Area, where the Liu family lived, to surveil them and try to coax private information from the family, which he could then provide to the Chinese government.
Her father told The Associated Press at the time, “They’re probably just trying to scare us, to … kind of threaten us not to say anything, to cause trouble for them and say anything political or related to human rights abuses in China … I had concerns about her safety. The U.S. government did a good job of protecting her.”
The US Department of Justice and the FBI came to Liu’s aid.
She first spoke with the FBI agent who would protect her family at length at a local Japanese restaurant.
“I liked to go to dinner with her a couple of times, I mostly talk because like, I’m also really interested in what she’s doing, like guys like, it’s so cool for me, I don’t know, like meeting with an FBI agent, like it’s crazy work,” she said.
“You know, and I mean like not a lot of people can do that. So I, you know, I have so many questions and who I’ve met with like a psychologist there, not for me like because I was like, so curious to like what she’s doing.”
Liu added that the FBI made her feel “safe” throughout the situation.
The spy operation did not deter Liu from competing in Beijing. But she had increased security from the US State Department and the USOPC, as at least two people escorted her at all times when she was there.
She has not ruled out seeing her life and experience in an international espionage incident, adapted into a film.
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Alysa Liu poses for a photo after the 2026 Milan Olympic figure skating announcement show at the Enterprise Center on January 11, 2026. (Jeff Curry/Imagn Images)
Still, she has some preferences if her story makes it to the big screen.
“They have to make me look like a super cool hero or something. And just, I can’t just be the kid who got spied on and didn’t do anything about it,” she said. “But honestly, I just wanted the main focus to be like my dad’s story, because like his story is so cool and like everything that only happened because of what he did, so I feel like we got to start with the roots.”
Liu will now do what she can to ensure her country does not leave Milan Cortina without an individual figure skating gold medal as she put herself in contention for gold after the short program on Tuesday night.
Liu landed a triple Lutz-triple loop, the hardest combination any woman attempted. She will have to usurp Japanese rivals Ami Nakai and Kaori Sakamoto.
