BY GEORGE DICKIE
Even before she hit the ice
in Beijing for her first Winter
Olympics, Alysa Liu was being
hailed as "the Simone Biles of
figure skating."
No pressure there.
Indeed, there are high
expectations on the 16-year-old
native of Northern California,
who came into these games with
plenty of hardware in U.S. and
international competitions but
had yet to prove herself on the biggest stage of all.
However, the credentials for an athlete her age are
impressive: Two gold medals in ladies' singles in the U.S.
Championships (2019-20), a bronze in the U.S. juniors (2020)
and a silver in the Junior Grand Prix Final (2019-20). She's
also a two-time Junior Grand Prix champion (2019-20) and a
U.S. junior national champion (2018).
Additionally, she's the youngest woman at 13 to win a U.S.
championship; at 14, the youngest woman to win back-to-
back U.S. titles and at 14 the youngest U.S. skater to land
three triple axels in an international competition.
And then there is the comparison to Simone Biles, the
greatest gymnast in Olympic history, which came courtesy of
Adam Rippon, the U.S. figure skater who won bronze in 2018
at PyeongChang.
Liu goes for gold in women's singles when she performs in
the free skate on Thursday, Feb. 17. All events in the 2022
Winter Olympics air on NBC, Peacock, USA Network,
CNBC, NBCOlympics.com and NBC Sports app.
Liu copes with big
expectations in Beijing
• FOR THE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 14 - 20, 2022 •
Rachel Brosnahan stars in
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premiering its fourth season
Friday on Amazon.
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