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Less than a month after winning Olympic gold, American figure skating sensation Alysa Liu appears to have surprisingly pulled out of the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czech Republic.
Liu is no longer listed in the event’s participants on the International Skating Union (ISU) website. Her original place is now filled by second alternative, Sarah Everhardt.
Pakinomist Digital has reached out to Liu’s representatives for comment.
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Alysa Liu of the United States arrives to compete during the women’s free figure skating program at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
There is currently no known reason for Liu’s sudden absence from the list.
The change comes days after Liu revealed on social media that she was recently “chased” to her car by a bystander.
“So I land at the airport and there’s a crowd waiting at the exit with cameras and stuff for me to sign,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “Right up in my personal space. Someone chased me to my car brush. Please don’t do that to me.”
Liu previously retired shortly after her first Olympic appearance in 2022. Her father, Arthur Liu, said it was due to “trauma”.
“She became really unhappy,” Arthur Liu told USA Today about why she retired. “She avoided the rink at all costs. She’s traumatized. She was just traumatized. She suffered from PTSD and she wouldn’t go near the rink.”
Prior to her appearance in the 2022 Beijing Games, she and her father were the alleged targets of a Chinese government espionage operation. Liu called the experience “a little bit freaky and exciting.”
Gold medalist Alysa Liu of Team United States poses for a photo during the women’s singles figure skating medal ceremony on day thirteen of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at the Milan Ice Skating Arena on February 19, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
“You know what I mean? It’s so … unbelievable. You know what I mean, it’s crazy,” she previously told Pakinomist Digital at a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
“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 real. I must be a movie character. But I mean, it was like it made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days.”
Arthur Liu told The Associated Press in 2022: “They’re probably just trying to intimidate 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 US government did a good job of protecting her.”
Liu returned to the sport just two years later in 2024. By March 2025, she was already making history for Team USA, becoming the first American at the World Figure Skating Championships in 19 years. Then in February, she made history as the first American to win Olympic gold in a women’s individual speed skating competition since 2002 and the first American woman to medal at all in the event since 2006.
The historic victory was followed by a massive rise in popularity.
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Alysa Liu of Team United States performs the women’s singles figure skating routine during a figure skating exhibition gala on day fifteen of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at the Milan Ice Skating Arena on February 21, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
Before the Olympics, she had less than 300,000 followers on Instagram. Just a week after the Olympics ended, she climbed past 5 million. Now, at the time of publication, she has more than 7.4 million.
However, it seems that many of her new fans will now not get to see her compete in Prague.
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