Last week, Alysa Liu became the first woman to win gold for the United States of America in over two decades for her sport at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
I don’t think the average viewer has a real grasp of the technicalities of figure skating. I didn’t watch all of the performances, and I didn’t know if there was an obvious difference in the quality of what Alysa executed versus her competitors to the untrained eye.
When I asked a friend who was a professional figure skater herself about it, she explained that while Liu’s performance was visually pleasing, she had less mechanical command of the sport than many of her competitors; particularly from Russia.
But what I did know was that she seemed free and alive and overjoyed. And while she may not have been the most clinically gifted skater on the ice, there’s no denying that she captivated the world with her routine, bolstered by her energy, exuberance and a rediscovered love for the sport after growing to hate it. I know some people believe she just got lucky, but I believe her victory was a unique testament to the American ethos.
Alysa Liu was born to a single father that fled communist China.
Asian-Americans are renowned for their “tiger parenting” and rigorous standards for their children.
The children of Asian immigrants often have high expectations placed on them, and are made to feel as though love is something to be earned with credentials.
Many become doctors, lawyers and engineers, not because they have any particular interest in those fields but because it’s the only way they know to make their parents proud.
Generally speaking, Eastern cultures place more emphasis on academic achievement than athletic achievement.
It seems like Americans put their kids in sports hoping to develop desirable characteristics, with a latent hope that they might make it big, while it seems like much of the Asian diaspora only prioritizes sportsmanship when they see capacity to compete at the highest possible levels, and it can be turned into a professional endeavor.
This often leads to obsessive, disordered and dissatisfied thinking that makes it impossible for parents or their children to enjoy the sport in any real capacity.
That’s not to say that all Asian athletes have strict, unrelenting parents or that American culture is immune to the same pressures.
Tom Brady’s unhinged commitment to dominating his league is proof that it isn’t exclusive to any one group. But the patterns are real and well-documented.
It sounds like Alysa Liu had the stereotypical experience as a daughter of an Asian immigrant.
She showed early promise, and her father poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into maximizing her potential.
It sounded like every waking moment of her life revolved around her sport, turning her existence into a job without reprieve and crushing her under the weight of its demands, leading to her early retirement before her triumphant return.
In an interview she said, “I really hated skating when I quit. Like, I really didn’t like it.”
“Over time she rediscovered a love for skating not as a competitive pursuit but a vehicle for self-expression. She soon fixed her sights on a comeback, but only under certain conditions…Alysa Liu would [have] final say over everything from her costumes to her music to her diet to her training schedule. Most importantly, the results wouldn’t matter.” (The Guardian)
I think there’s something to be said for tiger parenting. If it weren’t for over a decade of discipline and dedication, I don’t know that she ever would have achieved what she did last week.
I think our country as a whole would probably be better off if our families embraced it in moderation.
Sometimes I wonder how different my own life would have been if my parents had forced me to stick with something – like tennis, or piano, or photography.
But I think there’s something uniquely American about the value we place on the nexus of excellence and enjoyment.
The United States has always loved winners. We’ve always wanted to be the first, and the best, and triumphant against all odds because underdog victory not only gave birth to this nation but sustained it.
Throughout our history, we’ve seen ourselves rooting for the scrappy, the determined, and the borderline delusional because that’s who we’ve been from the beginning.
Since our founding, we believed that if you wanted something badly enough and worked hard enough for it, that it was within reach.
And I think it played a huge role in making the United States of America the greatest country on earth.
Not everyone could or should be a star athlete, an astronaut or a CEO.
But for almost as long as this nation has existed, grit and tenacity have been rewarded.
And because of that, average people were able to achieve a standard of living that was considered a luxury everywhere else in the world.
You didn’t have to be an elite to live well in America. If there was a will, there was a way.
And maybe that’s why my generation was one of the first where our parents were willing to take unheard of risks on our futures. They were willing to pay for degrees that they’d never heard of, encouraging us to “follow our dreams.” Obviously, it was kind of a disaster, but I think they had good intentions. Things just kind of worked out for them, and maybe they assumed they would for us too.
I know that we’re constantly compared to Europe for quality of life, where people love to pretend everything is just high quality cigarettes, baguettes and beach clubs. But when you remember that they’re only able to take 6 months of vacation per year or maternity leave until their kids start first grade thanks to the American taxpayer, I think we honestly live pretty well.
Whether I was in Boston in a blizzard, or DC during COVID, or Florida during a hurricane; whether I was folding blazers between college classes, making sandwiches at a gas station, or raising millions of dollars for non profits, I feel like my adult life revealed an instinct to make merry, relax and goof off that could not be overcome – not just in myself, but the vast majority of the people I met.
I think we’re a fun people that could make a good time out of almost anything.
And I think that while some of us struggle with grindset culture and a striver mentality, most of us – especially the Christians – know that the number of degrees we obtained or the fancy initials by our names aren’t what actually matter in the grand scheme of things.
I’m grateful to live in a country that (ideally) rewards innovation, productivity and ingenuity. Doing matters. Trying matters. Ambition matters.
But fulfillment and purpose matter too. Maybe just as much. Maybe more.
And neither can be realized when people treat one another and themselves like sentient spreadsheets.
In December 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in on a heated debate on H-1B visas, asserting that a culture that “celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
But if our country were to actually follow his advice of “more math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons…More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall,’” to the other extreme, I think we’d lose everything that made us special, and the environment that paved the way for Alysa Liu.
When everything is about numbers, titles, and metrics, it’s difficult for people to discover real meaning, and impossible for them to experience true ascension.
Alysa Liu’s routine captured the world and broke a 20 year gold drought in her category because she abandoned skating as a profession and was able to rediscover it as a passion.
She certainly couldn’t have done that in China.
When asked about whether the gold medal had been earned, Russian skater Alexei Yagudin responded, “It was completely fair. Russians can’t skate like that. She just skated for fun… Americans say things like ‘Hey! How are you?’ ‘Have a good time’ ‘I’m just happy to be here,’ and that’s exactly the vibe she had.”
I don’t know if she was trying to save face or she genuinely believed that, but I do think that aura can and does overpower hard skill.
Alysa Liu’s victory and the story that led up to it was a uniquely American spectacle made possible by a uniquely American story, and it’s given me a new appreciation for what’s possible when the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of greatness can meaningfully coexist.
what do you think?