The best American skater is fan of Zagitova and wants to make friends with Valiyeva
We talked with Alisa Liu.
Russia has usurped women's single skating: both on the senior and on the junior level only Russians win. Representatives of other countries often do not even have the opportunity to get into the top three and medal. This happened in the final of the senior Grand Prix series, where all the medals were won by students of Eteri Tutberidze.
But in the juniors, the fight was more acute. Tutberidze's figure skater Kamila Valiyeva won, but American Alysa Liu imposed serious competition on her. Liu has the most difficult program among juniors, and at senior level, only Aleksandra Trusova can compete with her. Alysa performs three triple Axels and two quadruple Lutz's - these are the most difficult jumps in figure skating. In Turin, Liu lost only because she could not skate cleanly.
She is only 14 years old - and she is already a superstar in the United States. Alysa is invited to evening shows, she gives interviews to major American media outlets, and Tara Lipinski calls her "the hope of generations."
After the Grand Prix finals, Liu and her coach Laura Lipetski met with reporters and answered questions about working on super-complex jumps, relationships with Russians, plans for the future and talked about her childhood. A childhood in which there was only a father, since Alysa was born through surrogacy.
Favourite program - Zagitova's free program from Pyeonchyang.
When Liu lost to Valiyeva in the Grand Prix finals, she deliberately walked up to Kamila in the mixed zone and, with reporters present, congratulated the Russian girl on her success. “Well done, good job!” She shouted to the Kazan skater.
“I was very happy for her,” says Liu about that episode. “I think everyone in this situation should be happy for the opponent who has achieved success.” Alysa really wanted to chat with Kamila and even make friends, but the language barrier prevented them. “We practically did not communicate with Alysa,” says Kamila. “She congratulated me on the Internet after the stage in France, but I still have weak English, I can’t talk to her.”
Alysa says that Kamila has a great future and she is very interested in competing with her. Liu tunes in to the good programs of Alina Zagitova. As Alysa admitted, Alina’s Olympic program is her favorite.
“The program that inspires me the most is Alina Zagitova's free from Pyeongchang,” says Liu. - Because she was the first to decide to perform all the jumps in the second half and scored the maximum possible number of points. It motivates me to work even harder. " Liu together with her coach supported Zagitova in the final and even took pictures with a poster in her support.
Like with young Zagitova, Liu has problems with presentation and artistry. “I'm not very good yet artistically,” says Liu. “I would say that I'm not good at all. There is a lot of work to be done. Now I think more about quads. We try to make them turn out as easy as triples. And in theory, you need to think about the jump only during the approach to it, and before that you need to deal with the presentation of the program.”
To help her student, Lipetski invited Laurie Nicole, one of the strongest choreographers in the world, to stage programs. She delivered a free program to the Chinese pair Sui Wenjing and Han Tsun. Tat'yana Tarasova called the performance the best of those that she saw in pair skating in recent years.
“Lori is an amazing choreographer,” Liu says of working with her. - She stages programs for outstanding skaters, Olympic champions. Each of her productions is special, she tries to reveal new facets of the athlete’s talent.”
Alysa also progresses in sliding, spins, and skating skills. To do this, before the finals, Liu went to visit the best skater in the world known for sliding of this century - Carolina Costner. “She helped me take a different look at figure skating,” says Liu, about the internship with Costner. “We worked a lot with her on skating and presentation, she explained to me that on the ice I should show a performance for the audience.”
Learning at home and helping father to raise the younger sisters
Alysa is being home schooled - a teacher comes to her in the morning, looks at how she completed her tasks, explains a new topic and gives exercises for the next lesson. “I would like to go to a regular school with other kids, but I don’t have enough time for this,” Liu explains.
She also has many friends. “I love spending time with them,” says Alysa. - Sometimes they impress me with their creativity, they can cheer me up after the worst skating. Most of my friends are from figure skating, but there are also from outside sports. For example, my neighbour. I have known her since we were two years old.”
Supporting the family, Alysa has four sisters: 12-year-old Selena and nine-year-old triplets Justin, Julia and Joshua. Alysa as the oldest girl helps her father deal with her younger siblings.
Alice was born from a surrogate mother, an anonymous donor donated an ovum to her father. Arthur Liu explains that he always wanted children, but he was already over 40, and he never found a bride for himself.
Raising four young children at once in parallel with work (Arthur is a lawyer) was not easy. At one time, the whole family huddled in a small apartment with one bed, where my grandmother lived, who came from China to help raise her grandchildren.
Despite everything, Alysa loves her father and her family very much and believes that she had a very eventful and fulfilling childhood. “I have a beautiful dad and four wonderful sisters,” she says. “We are all different, but I love them all. It’s always interesting with them, we never get bored when we are alone, and dad tries to do everything he can for us.”
Alysa in the American press is called one of the contenders for victory in the next Olympic Games. Liu will become a senior just before the 2022 Olympics and will be in his best form at the Games.
It's funny that in 2022 the Olympics will be in China. Alysa is a Chinese girl, her father moved to America to develop as a lawyer. “I hardly know Chinese,” says Liu. “But I try to learn. Not enough practice. At home, father teaches us Chinese traditions. I really like traditional Chinese cuisine.” So far, Alysa has never been to China, but it is obvious that the athlete will try to do everything to go there, to the Olympics.
Right now it’s impossible to say that Liu will win in Beijing. In two and a half years, anything can happen to any skater, but if she continues to progress as rapidly as she does now, then the Russians will have a really worthy rival in China.
At least Alysa is serious. “I will not hide that my goal is the Olympics,” she told reporters. - I think any ambitious athlete wants to win the Olympic Games. The Games are still far away. But every competition, every training, every new learned element brings me closer to victory at the Olympics.”
Liu and her trainer try to work like Tutberidze's school.
“I am pleased with myself and my results,” Alysa commented with a wide smile after her skating runs in Turin. “I wanted to show myself here and take a place in the top three. Maybe not everything worked out in my program, but my coach praised me for my courage.”
Going out with two quadruple Lutz's and two triple Axels is really great courage. Even Trusova does not dare to take such a risk. Aleksandra owns both the Axel in three and a half turns, and a Lutz in four, but performs these jumps only once each program.
Alysa decided in Turin to surprise everyone with her difficulty and did not calculate her strength. “Perhaps if I dropped the other quad it would've been be easier for me. But I do not want to stand still, I want to develop and move forward,” the American explains her decision.
On the jumps, they were declared under rotated and counted only with a reduced value. Under rotating is a big problem for the skater, because of which Alysa is often criticised in Russia. Liu does not always have time to spin the final revolution in the air and completes the jump already on the ice. Sometimes the judges notice this and react with penalties in the assessment (as in the Grand Prix finals), sometimes they leave the flaw in execution unattended.
“We understand that the jump technique is not perfect right now,” coach Alice Lipetski responded to this criticism. - I try to explain to Alysa that you need to gain more speed before entering the jump. Then there will be a high speed of rotation in the air."
Another trick that Liu uses when jumping is the early start of the jump. Alysa begins to turn her body even before the skates come off the ice. In professional terminology, this is called prerotation. The most accurate transition is the preliminary rotation. This technique allows you to twist part of the jump even on ice and thereby compensate for the difference in twist speed.
According to the trainer, at this stage, it’s almost impossible for a girl to perform a pure quad or triple Axel. But there are examples, Liu's competitor Valiyeva’s quadruple jump at the Grand Prix stage in France, according to judges, became the best female quadruple in history. She is the first to get +5 for a quad.
“We are trying to understand and adopt the technique of the Eteri girls,” Lipetski says. Liu herself said that her main motivator and idol is Trusova.
“What Trusova does is something unimaginable. She is very brave and strong, I try to follow her, ” said Lew about the young Russian skater. And she added that she was looking forward to moving into seniors in order to compete with her. “She tried five quadruples, maybe I can do more,” said Alysa jokingly.
Becoming the youngest champion in history.
Liu tried her first quadruple at the age of 11. Then in training, Lipetski noticed that Alysa had a good height on the triple Salchow. “She twisted the jump and fell. But I noted that there is a margin for a quad,” the trainer recalled that moment.
Liu admits that at first time it was scary to enter the quadruple, but the coach helped her and worked on the jump on a special harness. A few months of work on the fishing rod, and Alysa already jumped the Salchow without insurance. The jump was unstable, it took a lot of strength. It was abandoned in favour of a triple Axel.
Alysa went back to working on quads before the start of this season. Since her Lutz is the best from her triples, they decided to upgrade to the quadruple, although this is the most difficult of the quadruples. In the future, Liu would like to try other quads. In training, she does a Flip, tries a Toeloop and Salchow, but so far in the program she is ready to show only a quad Lutz and a triple Axel.
Axel in three and a half turns - an extremely complex jump. This element was managed by “queen of quads” Trusova only after a long time, and Liu learned the triple Axel in a couple of months. “At first it was hard, I fell a lot,” says Liu. “But after a few workouts, I realised what to do.”
Last winter, Alysa shocked the whole of America when she entered the US Championship with three triple Axels in her two programs. Having cleanly completed all the jumps, Liu at 13 and a half became the youngest US champion in history, surpassing the seemingly eternal achievement of Olympic champion Tara Lipinski, who won at 14.
Ironically, the past record holder commented on the new performance. “Alice is the hope of our generation,” Tara said on NBC. “She takes figure skating to a whole new level.”
The triumph at the US Championship made her a celebrity. Jimmy Fallon’s evening show, Today Show on NBC, Alysa received extensive media coverage and interviews. For Liu, the sudden popularity was not a shock: she eagerly communicates with the press, smiles at photo shoots, and extensively answers the most provocative questions of journalists.
In the world of figure skating, they agree that Alysa was carefully prepared for the role of a star, taught the rules of communication with the media, filming in commercials, and appearing on television. Therefore, she behaves more confidently than Russians of her own age. The rest is Liu's natural charm, which catches almost any person.
(c) Rustam Imamov
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From:
http://sport.business-gazeta.ru/article/248949
