Alysa Liu has only been in Milan, Italy, for a week, but she’s already turned heads at the Winter Olympic Games.
The 20-year-old figure skating prodigy, who won her first United States championship at 13, has already won her first gold medal in the team event this past weekend.
While she’s already gone viral on social media for breaking her gold medal and then having to trade it in to the Olympic committee for a new one, Liu is becoming synonymous with one thing from a slew of new fans watching her skate for the first time: her hair.
Liu has multiple streaks in her hair, going from dark brown to blonde. It’s a style that she has made her own over the last few years, with the motivation to keep it going, possibly until the next Olympics in 2030 in the French Alps.
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“Every year, I add a stripe, so it’s going to be like this for a year,” she told NBC Bay Area in an interview last month. “Next year, wintertime, at the end of December, I do another ring.”
She started back in 2023 and has continued since, rising through the ranks of figure skating since returning from an early retirement at the age of 16. The hairstyle has worked, as she’s the most recent women’s Grand Prix Final and world champion.
In a sport where prim and proper is generally expected from the athletes, Liu’s alternative, in-your-face style with piercings has endeared her to new viewers. After returning from her teenage retirement, she’s taken control of her career and has prospered. She’s become the figure skater she wants to be on the ice, regardless of anyone else’s opinion.
“What inspired this? The hair?” Liu was asked in a recent TikTok video at the Olympics by American Paralympian Haven Shepherd.
“Uh,” Alysa replied, trying to find the right words. “I just wanted to be a tree.”
This tree already has one gold medal (two, if you count the broken one).
Next week, Liu will aim for another in the women’s individual competition to close out figure skating at the Olympic Games.
