Alysa Liu was luminous when she won the women’s figure skating Olympic gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, a sense of joy and fun she radiated all through the Games.
So it’s hard to believe she wasn’t in a good place just a few years ago when she famously retired from the sport at 16 after feeling burned out and lonely. She’d been training non-stop from the age of 5.
“My mental health used to be horrible, like, absolutely horrible,” Liu, now 20, tells TODAY.com.
“And I just took a break, and I did something new. I moved on to a different part of my life. I really focused on school and friendship, and honestly, that’s the thing that grounded me.”
Surrounding herself with the right crowd of people was “crucial,” she adds. Liu went on her first vacation and got her driver’s license.
“I learned how to drive during that time, so I was able to go out more and hang out with my siblings more and go do things. So that definitely helped,” she says.
“I looked really deep into myself for a long time.”
For a while, Liu had such an aversion to skating that she avoided any visits to the ice rink.
But then she just knew she was ready to come back after an adrenaline-filled winter trip to Lake Tahoe, she recalls.
“I went skiing and I had so much fun, and I was like, ‘Well, I want to keep having more fun.’ So it was a selfish decision,” Liu says.
She announced her return to competition in March 2024.
Alysa Liu’s Mental Health Advice
Her current formula for staying mentally strong includes two core habits: “Getting a good night’s sleep and making sure I talk to the people I love often,” Liu says.
“I think sleep is like the biggest thing — getting enough hours. I need at least eight hours to feel good.”
The skater goes to the gym to complement her on-ice training with stability and strength power days. She eats three full meals to fuel her body and brain. During competition, she reminds herself to breathe.
How does she stay so chill under pressure? Appearing on TODAY on March 2, Liu said she’d be “totally OK” if she messed up and did a horrible program so there’s nothing to be nervous about.
“Don’t compare yourself to anybody. Stay on your own path, your own journey, and focus on yourself,” Liu tells people struggling with their mental health.
For young athletes who are feeling burned out like she once did, she offers this advice: “If it’s really such a struggle, I would say definitely take that break. Don’t be scared to do that. You’ll be scared of failure, (but) honestly, trying new things will definitely give you a different outcome.”
Family plays a huge part in her life. Her father is her biggest cheerleader and she has four younger siblings — three sisters and a brother — she loves to hang out with.
As for her own incredible comeback, Liu is savoring competing on her own terms. What would she want to tell her younger self about this moment?
“Nothing, nothing. I would not want to tell her a thing,” Liu says.
“Because I don’t want anything to change. Like, she’ll figure it out. She’ll go through it.”