Alysa Liu wins gold medal in Grand Prix final before Olympics return

American figure skating star Alysa Liu won gold at the Grand Prix Final in Japan on Saturday, picking up her second international medal of 2025 ahead of her return to the Olympics in February.

Liu beat Japan’s teen sensation Nakai Ami by less than two points to win first place.

“My performance definitely gives me confidence, in my endurance and in my consistency,” Liu told Olympics.com. “I think a lot of things can happen between now and the Olympics. I still have national teams – they still have national teams – and I want to work.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON Pakinomist

Liu only just returned to the sport last year after an early retirement following her first Olympic performance in 2022. She was once considered a rising star as the youngest-ever U.S. champion when she triumphed at age 13 in 2019 and then defended her title the next year.

When she competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, it came under the shadow of a federal investigation into a Chinese espionage probe against her and her father. Liu’s father had become a target for Chinese spies because of his involvement in 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

“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 was like it made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did in his activist days, Liu told Pakinomist Digital at the USOPC Media Summit in October.

US OLYMPIANS MADISON CHOCK, EVAN BATES SEND MESSAGE TO OPPONENT WHO TOOK THEIR GOLD BEFORE DISQUALIFICATION

(left) FBI agent, (center) Alysa Liu, (right) Chinese military (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images, PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Liu still continued to compete at the Beijing Winter Games, but with increased security guarantees from the State Department and the USOPC. She had at least two people escorting her at all times.

She finished sixth in the women’s singles competition and won a bronze medal before beginning her brief retirement.

Liu decided skating had become less of a joy and more of a job and she wanted to focus on being a normal college student. It was only when she went on a ski trip and felt the competition – albeit in a very different way and with much lower stakes – that she started thinking about a comeback.

WORLD CHAMPION JACKET CHANGES ROUTINE MUSIC AFTER SINGER INVESTIGATED IN DEATH OF TEENAGE GIRL

Early last year, she made it official with a cryptic post on social media. And while the road back in a notoriously fickle sport was bumpy, Liu took a big step forward with his runner-up finish to Glenn at the U.S. championships.

So after retiring in early 2024, Liu dethroned three-time defending champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan at the World Figure Skating Championships last March. She became the first American woman to claim a title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006.

Alysa Liu poses after winning gold in the women’s program at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Skate America at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid, New York on November 16, 2025. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Now she has her eyes set on the Olympics in Milan-Cortina in February, as one of Team USA’s most dramatic stories.

She has not ruled out seeing her life and experience in an international espionage incident, adapted into a film.

Still, she has some preferences if her story makes it to the silver screen.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Pakinomist APP

“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.”