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MILAN — When the first figure skater enters her starting pose in the final half of the women’s singles skating event Thursday night, American Alysia Liu will be best positioned to win a medal for the United States.
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Liu, 20, takes third place started Thursday’s free skate after scoring 76.59 in her short program Tuesday. Four years after retiring from the sport completely – and two years after returning – Liu is now within striking distance of gold.
Although the spotlight has sometimes been unforgiving for athletes the Milan Cortina games, one of Liu’s coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo, expects her to enjoy the experience.
“She really hates that question: ‘Why don’t you get nervous?'” DiGuglielmo told NBC News before the Olympics. “She doesn’t know. She just doesn’t know.”
He added: “When she skates and she takes you there, she started to understand that the audience is sending her this weird energy, this crazy psychic power that she then focuses on and implements into an even more amazing performance.”
Alysa Liu of Team USA performs during the short program Tuesday in Milan, Italy.Yara Nardi / ReutersLiu’s skating on Thursday will come at the end of a winding path, which began when she took up figure skating very early in life, competing in Beijing in 2022. moving away the same year, and will only return when she can exercise more control over her own career.
And Liu was adamant she won’t judge her success on how she finishes on Thursday.
“My goal is just to complete my program and share my story,” Liu said after her short program Tuesday.
DiGuglielmo said, “With her now, the journey is not about the outcome. The journey is about exploring who she is as an athlete, as a person and as an artist.”
Liu’s personal goals contrast with the external pressure that could be projected on her on Thursday, as she is the American skater with the best chance of finishing on the podium.
Amber Glenn, winner of three consecutive U.S. championships, enters the free skate in 13th place after an invalid element in Tuesday’s short program seriously hurt her score.
“I just lost my focus, I didn’t feel good,” an emotional Glenn told NBC Sports’ Andrea Joyce immediately after Tuesday’s practice. “Just disbelief. I did the hard things.”
Team USA’s Amber Glenn competes in the women’s singles short program in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesSpeaking to reporters after Wednesday’s practice, Glenn said it wasn’t nerves that got to her in the short program, but simply the fact that she lost her balance before what was supposed to be a triple loop turned into a double. Glenn added that she still hopes to build on her performance on Thursday, even if a medal seems out of reach.
“The devastation [Tuesday] “I was devastated that I lost the happiness and the fun that I wanted to have on the ice to say, like, I fought for everything I did, everything I could, and that’s what I really wanted, and that’s what I missed out on. So that’s exactly what I hope to do [Thursday].”
The wild card among the “Blade Angels” is Isabeau Levito, the 18-year-old competing in her first Olympic Games, who enters the free skate in eighth place. It would take one or two more surprises for Levito to reach the podium, but the ice in Milan has been particularly unpredictable so far. Mikhail Shaidorov, the figure skater from Kazakhstan who won gold, finished sixth after the short program.
“I felt very good there, I feel very well trained, so I was able to enjoy the moment,” Levito told NBC News after her short program.
She added of the attention paid to her and the other skaters: “I don’t feel like I get a lot of attention. I feel very happy to be here, excited to be here and I like the atmosphere here. I really enjoyed it.”