Following her big wins at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Team USA gold medalist Alysa Liu admits that everyone has been pronouncing her name wrong.
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During a recent interview with Newsweek, the figure skater said that her last name is often mispronounced as “Lu,” when it’s actually pronounced “Lee-oh.”
“I personally don’t care,” she stated. “[My last name] can be hard to [pronounce], and I don’t expect people to know how to say that.”
Regarding her first name, Liu stated that her family pronounces it “Ally-sa.” However, her friends refer to her as using the traditional American pronunciation “Alyssa.”
“‘Alyssa’ is how my friends call me,” she noted. “And that’s how the world calls me.”
The skater hit the ice nearly four years after she retired from the sport due to burnout. She previously competed at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Alysa Liu Is Looking Into Trying a New Sport After the Winter Olympics
Meanwhile, Liu recently told PEOPLE that she’s considering trying another sport after her performances at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
“I heard that surfing was really similar to skating and skiing,” she explained. “In the way that we glide. There’s not many activities in life where you feel the glide, and I recently heard surfing was one of them. So I really want to try that out.”
Along with discussing the different sports she wants to try, Liu shared some advice for the young skaters whom she inspires. She advises against anyone who tries to reach her level of success to chase titles.
“My goal is always to share my story and to connect with people,” she said. “To have my experiences, turn them into a performance, and have my emotions be a part of that and get people to feel something.”
Regarding her experience at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, Liu said, “It felt like college, living in the Team USA dorm. That was my favorite part of the Olympic experience, getting to do watch parties with the other athletes, eating with them, running to catch the bus with them. It was all really fun.”