On Thursday, the Bay Area’s Alysa Liu became the youngest female national champion in figure skating.
In recent years, I haven’t really kept up with international competitions. In all honesty, I can barely name the athletes competing this winter. Yet, when I was little, each Olympic season brought so much exhilaration within my home. In the summer time, beneath the sweltering heat that streamed through the massive window of my family house in Tokyo, I would plop down on the rug in front of my grandmother’s small television as the day’s events began broadcasting. As the season shifted and formidable gusts of wind emerged, my siblings and I would huddle in front of the heater while my grandmother would sit on the heated carpet on the couch. Regardless of the temperature, we chanted and clapped together as we rooted for our favorite contenders.
Whenever someone who shared one of my nationalities won a medal or set a new personal record, I was instantly overwhelmed with pride, purely because of the identity I was born into. This feeling was rooted not in personal familiarity, for I never met these people, but rather the fact that I could see myself in them through shared race or ethnicity. This surface level connection was enough for me to wholeheartedly root for them, and I never questioned this seemingly natural, uncomplicated relation.
In the midst of studying for my looming organic chemistry and math midterms, I found myself pondering about Liu’s return to skating. At sixteen, she stepped away from skating due to a loss of passion for the sport and the intense pressure she faced. When she made the choice to return, it wasn’t for the conventional reason of just winning a title. Rather, it’s to skate because she wanted to, free from the burden of external expectations.
I admire this choice of hers because it signifies that people, especially young women, have the power to define the manifestations of their ambitions. As someone who always worries about what my future holds and the limits of my passions in this current society, she reminds me that I’m capable of making my own decisions pertaining to my career and body.
In a sport that often reinforces stereotypical depictions of femininity, Liu’s choices regarding the intensity of her training, her diet, and her attire all disrupt the traditional gendered female skater archetype. With her dazzling halo-dyed hair and her constant smiling, she skates with such visible joy and freedom. The elegance streaming from her doesn’t derive from conforming to a forced persona, but rather from her individuality and desire to be herself.
When I watch her performance, my pride most definitely doesn’t derive from our shared background. Instead, her victory resonates with me because of her courage, her courage to step away, return, and define success on her own terms. For her, the real reward wasn’t the metal; it was winning on her own terms, doing something she loves. She embodies actual “living” in the sense of pure self enjoyment and seeing experiencing as a trophy in itself. That, to me, is the most meaningful victory of all.