The Olympics are supposed to be all about perceived decorum — where the world’s most elite athletes face off for their country, and are meant to do so with the utmost refinement. So imagine the reaction when, Alysa Liu took her final bow, pointed at the NBC camera, and punctuated her performance with a declaration: “That’s what I’m fu**ing talking about.”
For decades, figure skating rewarded stillness, polish, control. It crowned people who followed the rules. But an unexpected figure in a sport defined by traditional rigidity, has emerged, winning gold by being visibly human — a human with ADHD.
“I have ADHD, and I love situations that I’m not expecting,” Liu told ESPN. “It gives me a dopamine rush.”
Liu once took a two-year hiatus from the ice, emerging with a newfound admiration for herself, allowing her to return from retirement on her own terms. She’s always been excellent — becoming the youngest skater in history to perform a clean triple axel in competition, the first female skater to perform a quadruple jump and triple axel in a routine, and the youngest athlete named for the United States when she competed at the Beijing Olympics at just 16 years old.
But Liu didn’t really know herself then. She admitted she couldn’t. As she told Harper’s Bazaar, “I only ever did one thing.”
So she did something radical for an athlete: she took some time off, to do one other thing: get to know herself.
Even designer Vera Wang, who’s lesser known for her past on the ice, loves Liu. “She’s someone that is going to do it her way,” Wang said in an interview with Elle Magazine. “There is no other way for her to be and that’s who she is to the core. She’s sort of like a rocker, with the hair. She’s breaking every rule.”
Liu’s hair is the obvious show-stopper at first glance. “You know how trees have rings for her age?” She told TMJ4 News. “I thought, every year I’m gonna add a new halo around my hair. So it’s been two years, so I have two — pretty soon I’ll have a new stripe.”
But between her routine, choice in music, contagious expressions, and of course her “smiley” jewelry that she pierced herself with a (hopefully sterilized) needle, while her sister lifted her lip, you just believe her when you look at her. She knows who she is and is her, unapologetically — who is in part, a spectacular figure skater, but more noticeably, she’s someone that is so herself that it makes you want to quit your job to learn more about who you can be if you listened close enough.
The goal was to perform and show the world what she can do. And in doing so, she demonstrated what can happen when neurodivergent women stop shrinking to win.
“It almost makes you want to cry,” Wang said of Liu. “There’s irony where it should be. In the arts, there has to be irony. If there’s no irony, then you’re just looking at stuff.”
During her performance, she accessorized each axel with the world’s most genuine smile. After stepping off the ice and into a press conference, she couldn’t contain her laughter — whether it was nervousness or excitement, only Liu can be sure, but based on the jokes followed by clarity she gave to reporters, “Nah, I’m playin’,” it seemed like her giggles were at the expense of her seriousness.
Albeit the ultimate reward, Liu confessed that winning gold wasn’t truly her main mission — the goal was to perform and show the world what she can do. And in doing so, she demonstrated what can happen when neurodivergent women stop shrinking to win.
We tend to romanticize rule-breakers only after they’ve proven profitable. Gold makes eccentricity look like genius. Without it, the same traits are often treated as liabilities, but they’ve always been here, often quietly proving excellence. But Liu is proof that neurodiversity can make take greatness to gold.
Since the beginning of time, women have won by being agreeable, but Liu is evidence of women winning by being-self-defined. For her, that’s laughter, swearing and embodying the unpredictability she chases. With a gold medal around her neck, Alysa Liu is excellence, unmasked.
