Olympics: Alysa Liu, the gold medalist who comes from Tiananmen Square
The skater who brought the Olympic title in women's singles figure skating back to the United States after 20 years is the daughter of a dissident who fled in 1989. In 2022, her family reported “attention” from Chinese agents before the Beijing Games. A story mirroring that of Eileen Gu, the freestyle star who grew up in a California family and chose the People's Republic of China.
Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) - She brought the gold medal in women's singles figure skating, one of the most fascinating events of the Winter Olympics, back to the United States after more than twenty years. But on the Assago rink at the 2016 Milan-Cortina Games, 20-year-old Alysa Liu's smile also indirectly represented the Chinese forced to flee abroad after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
The young skater is in fact the daughter of a former Sichuan student who chose exile first in Hong Kong and then in California to escape repression. This is one of the reasons why, in the reports from the 2016 Milan-Cortina Games, Alysa Liu's face became the alter ego of Eileen Gu, the 22-year-old freestyle athlete, also born into a Chinese family in California, who since the 2022 Beijing Games has chosen to compete under the flag of the People's Republic of China.
The link between Alysa Liu and the world of Chinese dissidents is not just a story of the past. In 2022, the US Department of Justice indicted five men accused of acting on behalf of the Chinese government for surveilling and intimidating Chinese dissidents. Among them was Arthur Liu, Alysa's father, a former pro-democracy activist.
According to him, his daughter was also indirectly targeted. Shortly before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing—in which the then 16-year-old Alysa competed, finishing sixth—a man who identified himself as a US Olympic official called Arthur Liu asking for faxed copies of the family's passports. Arthur refused, suspicious.
It later emerged that one of the men arrested in the federal investigation had been tasked with surveilling the Liu family. In court documents, Arthur is referred to as “Dissident 3” and Alysa as “family member.” The skater said she reacted with disbelief to the news, wondering if it was all real, but also said that, knowing her father's history, it made sense.
In 1989, Arthur Liu was a student at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou and leader of the Autonomous Union of University Students. He organized demonstrations and hunger strikes in support of the student protests in Beijing, which culminated on June 4 in the Tiananmen Square massacre, with hundreds of civilians killed by the army.
Outraged by the use of force against the students, Arthur continued to protest. Questioned several times, he refused to give the names of other participants, taking responsibility for the movement's actions. Fearing imminent arrest, he fled by sea to Hong Kong with the help of acquaintances, risking up to three years in prison or a labor camp if caught.
Arthur later moved to Northern California, where he earned a law degree and opened a law firm. A single father of five, he passed on to Alysa a history of courage and perseverance that the skater gradually discovered, including through friends and acquaintances.
After competing in Beijing in 2022, the skater surprised the sporting world by retiring at the age of just 16, explaining that she wanted to spend some time away from the rink. When she returned to competition in 2024, she did so on her own terms.
She chose the music, shaped her own training, and wanted her father to take a step back from his daily involvement. By 2025, she had already won the World Championships; now, Olympic gold ahead of Japanese champion Kaori Sakamoto confirms her rise to the top of the sport.
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