American figure skating star Alysa Liu wins gold at Grand Prix Final

A break down of how Olympic scoring for figure skating works

U.S. figure skating star Alysa Liu won gold at the Grand Prix Final in Japan on Saturday, winning her second international medal in 2025 ahead of her return to the Olympics in February. 

Liu bested Japan's teen sensation Nakai Ami by less than two points to win the top spot. 

"My performance definitely does give me confidence, in my stamina and in my consistency," Liu said, per Olympics.com. "I think a lot of things can happen between now and the Olympics. I still have nationals - they still have nationals - and I will be working.

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Gold medalist Alysa Liu poses for a photo after winning the women’s world championship during the 2025 ISU World Figure Skating Championships at TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 28, 2025. (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Liu only just returned to the sport last year after an early retirement following her first Olympic performance in 2022. She was once considered a rising star as the youngest U.S. champ ever when she triumphed at the age of 13 in 2019 and then defended her title the next year.

When she competed at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, it came under the shadow of a federal investigation into a Chinese spying investigation against her and her father. Liu's father had become a target of Chinese spies due to his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

"Like, imagine finding that out at such a young age, I mean, like In a weird way, I was like, 'Am I like in some prank show?' Like, is this world real like I must be some movie character. But, I mean, it was like it made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days," Liu