Olympic sensation Alysa Liu opens up on withdrawing from world championships

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U.S. figure skating star Alysa Liu revealed extensively why she decided to withdraw from the upcoming World Championships following her successes at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. 

At a press conference at her Oakland celebration rally on Thursday, Liu said she wanted to go to worlds, but had too many prior commitments. 

"There's so many commitments I have and activities that are overlapping with worlds, and also I don't have much time training," Liu said. "So I can't be doing worlds. I don't think I'd put out my best performance." 

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Alysa Liu of Team United States performs in the Women's Single Skating routine during a Figure Skating Exhibition Gala on day fifteen of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Milano Ice Skating Arena on February 21, 2026 in Milan, Italy.  (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Liu also cited the recent wave of "attention" she's received after winning gold in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and becoming a social media sensation.

"It's been crazy how much visibility I have right now. I would have never expected that, especially from a figure skater, we don't really blow up like that. So, definitely an adjustment," Liu said. "But it's really just about staying offline."

Liu's absence from the world championships roster came just days after she revealed on social media that she was recently "chased" to her car by a spectator. 

"So I land at the airport, & there’s a crowd waiting at the exit with cameras & things for me to sign," she wrote in an Instagram story. "All up in my personal space. Someone chased me to my car bruh. Please do not do that to me."

Liu entered temporary retirement shortly after her first Olympic appearance in 2022. Her father, Arthur Liu, said it was due to "trauma."

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USA's Alysa Liu reacts after competing in the figure skating women's single free skating final during the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Milano Ice Skating Arena in Milan on Feb. 19, 2026. (WANG Zhao / AFP)

"She became really unhappy," Arthur Liu told USA Today about why she retired. "She avoided the ice rink at all costs. She's traumatized. She was just traumatized. She was suffering from PTSD, and she wouldn't go near the ice rink."

Before her appearance in the 2022 Beijing Games, she and her father were the alleged targets of a spying operation by the Chinese government. Liu called the experience "a little bit freaky and exciting."

"You know what I mean? It's so … unbelievable. You know what I mean like, that's crazy," she previously told Fox News 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 in some prank show?' Like, is this world real. Like, I must be some 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."

Liu made her return to the sport just two years later in 2024. By March 2025, she was already making history for Team USA, becoming the first American to win 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 figure skating competition since 2002 and the first American woman to medal at all in the event since 2006. 

The historic win was followed by a massive surge in popularity.

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Alysa Liu of the United States arrives to compete during the women's figure skating free program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.  (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Prior to 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 7.7 million. 

But fans will not be able to watch her in Prague, as they eagerly await her return to competition. 

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