Alysa Liu tops Prevagen U.S. Championships short program in figure skating comeback

Alysa Liu won her first senior U.S. figure skating title at age 13. She retired at age 16. She has come back at age 19 and now leads after the short program at her first nationals in three years.

Liu tallied 76.36 points, taking a 5.13-point edge over fellow two-time U.S. champion Bradie Tennell going into Friday’s free skate in Wichita, Kansas (8 p.m. ET, NBC and Peacock). Defending champion Amber Glenn is third.

Liu landed a triple flip-triple toe loop combination, double Axel and triple Lutz. She finished, then buried her face in her hands, bent over her knees and appeared to tear up. She let loose on emotions that began stirring a few minutes earlier, when she first stepped on the ice for her program to “Promise” by Laufey.

“I almost cried before my name was even called,” she said on NBC Sports.

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She was asked if her emotions were brought on by her clean program or by her return to the sport.

“Both of them together,” she said. “It was just the perfect moment for me.”

Back in 2019, Liu broke Tara Lipinski’s record as the youngest senior U.S. champion ever. She repeated in 2020. She placed sixth at the 2022 Olympics and earned a bronze medal at the World Championships a month later.

Two weeks after those worlds, she announced a retirement that may have surprised some. But she planned it privately the year before. Liu said that she was done with her figure skating goals and ready to move on with her life at 16 years old.

“I was so into skating that I really didn’t do much else,” she said before her return to competition in October. “Skating takes up your while life, almost. I don’t know if other people kind of feel the same when they look back at certain parts of their life, but for me, it’s definitely a blur, because it kind of meshes together, you know — going to the rink, going home, competing.

“There were many, many times when I didn’t enjoy it.”

She went more than a year without skating. Her return was sparked by a Christmas 2023 ski trip.

Now Liu can become the second women’s singles skater in the last 20 years to win three U.S. titles after Ashley Wagner.

She could also be headed to Boston for March’s World Championships. The three-woman team, picked by a U.S. Figure Skating committee, will be announced after nationals.

Glenn, undefeated this season, two-footed the landing of her opening triple Axel, then performed a triple flip-double toe loop combination rather than a triple-triple.

“The attack wasn’t there,” Glenn told coach Damon Allen as she came off the ice.

She’s bidding for a fourth podium in the last five years at nationals. Last month, she won the Grand Prix Final, the most prestigious title for a U.S. women’s singles skater in 14 years.

Earlier Thursday, Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea topped the pairs’ short program, taking a sizable 8.09-point lead over Emily Chan and Spencer Howe into Saturday’s free skate.

Kam, 20, and O’Shea, 33, are bidding to become the first pair to repeat as national champion in 11 years.

“One of the first things I said to our coach when I got off was that was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done,” Kam said. “I love roller coasters and all of those kind of things, but that program, I think I didn’t take a single breath the entire time I was skating.”

Kam and O’Shea won the U.S. title in 2024 in their second season together. The last pair to win back-to-back national titles was Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir in 2013 and 2014.

Kam and O’Shea backed up last year’s domestic success on the international Grand Prix Series this past fall.

They finished fifth at December’s Grand Prix Final as the fourth different U.S. pair to qualify for the exclusive event over the last 15 editions. The Grand Prix Final takes the top six pairs in the world based on results from the Grand Prix Series.

O’Shea is already the oldest U.S. pairs’ champion since World War II. In 2026, he can become the oldest U.S. Olympic pairs’ skater since 1932 and the oldest figure skater from any country to make an Olympic debut since 1948, according to the OlyMADMen.

“I think they say something about fine wine, right?” O’Shea said Thursday. “It gets better with age. I don’t know. Maybe I’m smelly cheese. But we’re getting better. I can owe a lot to this one (Kam).”

Two U.S. pairs will compete at March’s worlds. Their results must add up to 13 or fewer (sixth and seventh, for example) for the U.S. to earn the maximum three pairs’ spots at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. The U.S. last had three Olympic pairs in 1994.