In 2019, Bradie Tennell was poised to win her second US Championship. She was coming off a big performance at the Pyeongchang Olympics where she earned a bronze in the team competition and a ninth-place finish individually. She had also just taken first at the 2018 US Championships.
What no one was expecting was for a 13-year-old to burst onto the scene and just skate past Tennell by less than four points to win the competition. However, that is what the figure skating community witnessed in Jan. 2019. The dark horse victor was Alysa Liu, and with that win, she became the hope for US women’s figure skating just as fast as she burst onto the scene.
Liu made a name for herself as soon as the bars of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” came to a close at the end of her short program during the 2019 US Championships. She did not earn enough points in the performance for first, but she did get a mark that kept her in the race for gold. She was just under three points behind Tennell and had the edge in planned content for the free program.
It would take a perfect skate from Liu to beat the consistent Tennell, and the 13-year-old had it in her. With a score of 143.62, Liu jumped to first in the standings and became the youngest woman to win a US title.
But that would not be the only first for the young skater. Liu would go on to be the first US woman to land three triple Axels in a single competition, the first US woman to land a quad Lutz in competition, and the first woman in the world to land a quad and a triple Axel in the same program at a competition. This was all before she returned to compete at the 2020 US Figure Skating Championships.
Liu entered the 2020 US Championships with something she did not have the year before: pressure. All eyes were on the now 14-year-old. The question was if she could repeat what she had done at the 2019 Championships. Not only did Liu win, but she exceeded what she had done the year before. She bested her 2019 score by almost 20 points and finished 10 points ahead of Mariah Bell, who took second.
Coming into the 2021 US Championships, Liu was the favorite. She had jumps planned in her program that no one else was even attempting. However, she discovered that a clean skate is better than big jumps.
Liu was edged out in the competition by more consistent, experienced skaters. While she had more raw talent, her scores suffered from an inability to land her jumps cleanly. Part of her inconsistency can be blamed on the changes happening for Liu. She had just changed coaches and gone through a growth spurt that changed her center of gravity.
However, the hope that Liu is the future of US figure skating did not diminish after her fourth-place finish at the 2021 Championships. She is still possibly the only US women’s skater that has the jumps in her repertoire to compete with the Russian women.
As the landscape of women’s figure skating changes, Liu is the skater that can rise to the challenge. Now, for the first time, Liu can compete internationally on the senior circuit. She has already competed at three competitions for the United States this year, all of which she won. Most recently, she took first at the Nebelhorn Trophy. This victory was crucial because it earned the US a third shot in the women’s competition for Beijing.
The race for those three spots is going to be tight, but Liu is most likely going to be leading the pack. After a year of adjusting to changes, she has entered this season looking strong. While she has not hit her 235 mark that she scored in 2020, she has laid down fairly strong skates.
This year, it will most likely still take a clean skate from Liu for her to take first at the US Championships. However, if she keeps skating how she is now, Liu is almost guaranteed to see Olympic ice in February.