Peak moment on the 13th day of the Olympics
USAT’s Sam Cardona Norberg breaks down the epic night the Team USA women’s team had on the ice during Day 13 of the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
take sports seriously
MILAN – With two gold medals around her neck, Alisa Liu seems content to be an Olympic champion figure skater. She doesn’t seem very comfortable about different things.
“I don’t know if I really want to be a role model,” Liu said in a small group interview that included USA TODAY Sports. “But I think so. So, if anything, I encourage people to spend some time with themselves, try new and different things, gain experience, and then decide for themselves what they want to do.”
“It’s okay to take a break, and sometimes you need to take a step back to see the big picture.”
Liu famously “retired” from competitive skating at the age of 16 and returned after a two-year hiatus.
“Just doing me.”
Liu has attracted the world’s attention not only for his outstanding skating, but also for his sense of style, which includes platinum stripes in his black hair and a “smiley” earring on his frenulum.
Maybe young girls will start copying her style?
“I’m just doing me,” Liu said. “So if I can inspire other people, that’s cool. Yeah, I just have a certain fashion sense and I’m stubborn about it, so that always comes through.”
How long does Liu plan to skate?
At the age of 16, she already “retired” from skating, and then at the age of 20 she came out of retirement.
Liu is now 20 years old, does he plan to continue skating for the next few years or take another break?
“Well, I can’t imagine not skating next year,” Liu said. “That’s what I say.”
Get to the truth
During his hiatus from skating, Liu spent a year at UCLA, where he said he enjoyed studying psychology. But a career in psychology doesn’t seem to be in her future.
“I’m really interested in psychology, even though I don’t do that anymore,” she said. “I think it’s because I was interested in myself and the way I thought, especially because my childhood was growing up. It was so different than most people, and I just really wanted to get to the bottom of it, if that makes sense.
“So, yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of internalized thinking. I think the word I’m looking for is introspective. But yeah, it’s helped me a lot, and yeah, I love learning.”
And now Liu has solved the mystery of her brain –
“I don’t know if it’s completely resolved,” she says. “I think that’s the goal, but I also think there’s a beauty in it being a mystery.”
