Just before starting her short program in the 2026 Olympic figure skating team event, the new Alysa Liu cruised along the rink boards, smiling broadly, slapping hands with her coaches, Massimo Scali and Phillip DiGuglielmo, as she rocketed past them. 

In the midst of her program, she responded to a front-leaning landing on her double Axel jump with a bemusedly funky facial expression, a reaction Liu could cheerily describe as “like, oopsie” since the imbalance didn’t result in a face plant.

As she skated off the ice toward the Team USA Box at the Milano Ice Skating Arena after a performance that was fallible but never fragile, Liu pumped both fists in unison, yelled, “Yeah!,” then turned around to tumble into a group hug when her scores were announced.

“I want people to see everything about me,” Liu said, then added an hour later, “I love, I guess, being noticed.”

How different that is than four years ago, when the old Alysa Liu might have preferred to skate with the lights off at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when the sport brought darkness rather than joy to her life, gave her pain rather than pleasure.

It was all so overwhelming that only the private knowledge that she would soon be retiring at age 16 allowed her to muddle through the Olympics and the subsequent World Championships. Liu had skated more than respectably in Beijing, then won a bronze at worlds, but she couldn’t wait to throw her skates into the closet where they would gather rust for more than a year.

“I am very happy to be here compared to last time, which was like, 'Let's just get it over,’” she said. "This time feels so completely different. I know who I am as a person now.”

More importantly, she has become her own person, seeking and acquiring independence, allowing her to skate on her own terms rather than those set by her father, giving her the agency in her career that had been missing.

Thus, the raccoon-striped hair inspired by tree rings, the frenulum-piercing in her mouth, the stream-of-Alysa answers to questions, the insistence on being thought of more as an artist than a medal-seeking competitor, the short program to a darkly emotive Laufey song, “Promise,” that Liu has made her signature.

The story of her return to a sport in which she had been a prodigy at age 13 has been told often since her surprising comeback led very quickly to an even more surprising moment last March: taking the world title from Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, who had won the previous three.

Sakamoto outskated Liu – and the other eight women in the team event – Friday, scoring 78.88 points (highest in the world this season) to 74.90 for the second-place Liu. That helped keep Japan within two points of the United States in the three-day event that continues Saturday with the men’s short program (hello, quadg0d) and the free dance.

Three-time world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates got Team USA going with a stunning execution of their rhythm dance to a mix of Lenny Kravitz music. They topped 90 points (91.08) for the sixth time in their 15-year career, leaving runners-up Laurence Beaudry Fournier and Guillaume Cizeron of France 1.10 points behind.

“We definitely skated great,” Bates said.

Liu, who did not compete in the team event four years ago, made one significant error, under-rotating the triple loop jump that ended her required combination. That likely cost her two or three points (no way to tell exactly how many.)

Nerves? Naw. She seems impervious to pressure.

“I don’t know what’s up with me,” she said. “They’re going to have to dissect my brain when I’m dead to figure me out.”

She likely will turn into a cheerleader now, as Amber Glenn, winner of the last three U.S. titles, is expected to do the women’s free skate Monday. Countries have the ability to change up to two entries between rounds.

The women’s singles event doesn’t begin until February 17.

“It’s like a whole other stage for me,” Liu said, referring to competing in the team event. “The more stages, the better.”

Turn up the spotlights.

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at 13 straight Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCOlympics.com.