Alysa Liu changes coaches and moves to Colorado Springs

[demarinis5]

Wishing Alysa a smooth transition into her new training environment and that her jump issues will improve.

 

[gliese]

Cut back on soda and junk food.

That is under the assumption that an elite athlete would be eating that already. Newsflash: they probably aren't. Additionally, it is not recommended that athletes lose weight during the season. Only ever during the off season, and only very slowly with the help of a dietician.

The weight loss = jumps mindset is so damaging. She's already very lean (to the point it would take a lot to get much more off her) and there is so much visibly wrong with Alysa's technique that I'm sure she is working to fix. Nothing about her weight will ever change that technique.

 

[ice coverage]

I keep hearing money is indeed an issue. Papa Liu has 5 children and he is a single parent. Skating is expensive and she has no sponsors. ...

Alysa is sponsored by Toyota! Since about a year ago, IIRC.

I do not know who else sponsors Alysa, but being on Team Toyota is huge unto itself.

The Toyota sponsorship certainly is prestigious, and I hope that it relieves financial pressure to some extent. (Yes, skating is expensive.)
Nathan is the only other figure skater on Team Toyota this season.

---

Things that perhaps(?) have not been mentioned yet:

[1] Leading up to as well as onsite at 2018 Olympics, Drew Meekins was one of Mirai Nagasu's coaches.
He obviously was not her only coach, but he played a significant role in her path to Korea.
As we all remember, Mirai was the first US. woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, and she was a team bronze medalist.

(Drew is well known for working closely with Vincent as choreographer and one of his coaches, of course.
I wanted to make note of Mirai as another example of Drew's students.)​

[2] Hersh now has added a quote from Jeremy as well:

“I have nothing but deep respect and gratitude for the team I was so lucky to be a part of, and for the time I got to spend mentoring a truly remarkable human being,” Abbott said via text. “Though I may no longer be coaching Alysa, I will always be in her corner supporting her.”​

 

[TontoK]

There is a lot of unsourced gossip about Alysa’s dad from places that are normally decried here.

I would certainly hope that a parent would be involved enough in skating to know what their child wants and to know what’s going on with her coaches. The days of “Let’s just give my child over entirely to other people so they can chase shiny gold“ have been discredited for obvious reasons.

Alysa is a minor, and her father should make decisions, taking her well being into account.

I have no idea if this is good or bad, I haven’t watched Alysa skate since Cranberry. I respect Drew, Viktor, Christy, Jeremy and Massimo.

I wish all of them the best.

This is the correct response. Thank you, friend.

Parents are responsible for making decisions on behalf of their minor children, and it is completely irrelevant what anyone else might think of that. He is more atuned to her needs, her desires, her health and safety than uninformed armchair chatterboxes, who in all liklihood do not even know the family.

I wish her well.

* Edit: The predominant opinion on GS is that she can't medal at the Olympics, projected to finish behind the Russians and Japanese,, so I fail to see what harm could possibly come from changing things up with her team. Is there some concern that she's putting a seventh place finish in jeopardy?

 

[Seven Sisters]

Edit: The predominant opinion on GS is that she can't medal at the Olympics, projected to finish behind the Russians and Japanese,, so I fail to see what harm could possibly come from changing things up with her team. Is there some concern that she's putting a seventh place finish in jeopardy?

Speaking just for myself, my concern would be that Alysa may be pushed too hard in order to achieve unrealistic goals in too short of a time and might end up injured and unable to compete at all.

Of course I don’t know any of the people involved here personally and I’m sure everyone has Alysa’s best interests at heart. I wish Alysa all the best, I have always enjoyed her skating and her delightfully sunny disposition!

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Since you have mentioned previously publicly on the forum that you know Jeremy, if you have information from Jeremy that you can share, please let us know.

Otherwise, speaking so harshly about Drew Meekins' quotes seems to come from wanting to protect Alysa's previous coaching team, which personally I don't find convincing. ETA: As I read it, Drew was gracious about Jeremy and Massimo.

Drew, Christy and Viktor are doing what every new coaching team does, and speaking as every new coach does. I don't see any reason to attack them

Sorry, not Jeremy's PR person. Yes, I'll defend him and other skaters, but I think I've been misunderstood.

Either way, I brought in a differing opinion regarding this thread, and never mentioned anyone by name on the opposing coaching team. I have no issue with them, I had the issue with the PR crap that's trying to be drawn around everything, and I never said it said anything negative of her past coaches nor current coaches or their plans for her as a student. So please, don't put words in my mouth that weren't there. Thanks.

 

[alexocfp]

In skating it is bad to get a reputation for being a coach hopper. Top coaches don’t want to spend a lot of time and effort on a skater who is gong to leave at the first bad competition. There are more skaters that want to work with the top coaches than there is space for them.

You’ll get zero argument from me here on this one.

On the other hand, if you keep switching coaches and improving, doesn‘t that mean your instincts to move were right?

If she goes back to her old coaches, then that’s a big issue.

 

[TontoK]

Speaking just for myself, my concern would be that Alysa may be pushed too hard in order to achieve unrealistic goals in too short of a time and might end up injured and unable to compete at all.

Of course I don’t know any of the people involved here personally and I’m sure everyone has Alysa’s best interests at heart. I wish Alysa all the best, I have always enjoyed her skating and her delightfully sunny disposition!

That's valid. We'll have to see how it shakes out.

 

[moonvine]

Losing weight (just a few pounds) doesn't mean you have to "starve" yourself. That's completely two different things. You just try to eat healthier. More veggies/fruits. Cut back on soda and junk food. Let's face it, Tonya won't be able to rotate quad like Kamila. Tonya didn't land 3A as much as Tuk in competitions.

It depends on your starting weight. If you are overweight, yes, eating healthy and cutting back on junk food and soda will cause a person to lose weight and that is healthy.

Elite skaters - none of them - are overweight. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around any. I have been lucky enough to be around quite a few (at FOFS breakfasts, not like we just hang out) and they are tiny. All of them. There can be at any one time some that are a little overweight in the Intermediate or Novice levels but not elite figure skaters. Alysa is not overweight.

So, when you’re not overweight - say you are 105 and you want to lose 10 lb (which is just a few pounds) that is 10% of your body weight and it will take severe caloric restriction and probably purging to get there because you are already at the low end of weight.

Per Gracie…she got a lot of compliments *even when her skating was getting worse.*. (Because at first skating may improve but if the calorie restriction/purging gets bad enough the skater is not going to have the energy and muscle time required to land jumps. If you have no body fat to burn your body will burn muscle including heart muscle. That’s why anorexics can die of heart attacks even after recovery.)

Tonya didn’t need to land as many triple axels as Tuk in competitions. She was the first US woman to land it in competition. Also that was back when there were figures. She wasn’t good at figures and generally started off behind.

Sorry to write a novel. I just don’t want to see more eating disorders. I used to be a therapist and have very mixed feelings on supporting sports that can be harmful to athletes.

 

[moonvine]

Alysa is sponsored by Toyota! Since about a year ago, IIRC.

I do not know who else sponsors Alysa, but being on Team Toyota is huge unto itself.

The Toyota sponsorship certainly is prestigious, and I hope that it relieves financial pressure to some extent. (Yes, skating is expensive.)
Nathan is the only other figure skater on Team Toyota this season.

---

Things that perhaps(?) have not been mentioned yet:

[1] Leading up to as well as onsite at 2018 Olympics, Drew Meekins was one of Mirai Nagasu's coaches.
He obviously was not her only coach, but he played a significant role in her path to Korea.
As we all remember, Mirai was the first US. woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, and she was a team bronze medalist.

(Drew is well known for working closely with Vincent as choreographer and one of his coaches, of course.
I wanted to make note of Mirai as another example of Drew's students.)​

[2] Hersh now has added a quote from Jeremy as well:

“I have nothing but deep respect and gratitude for the team I was so lucky to be a part of, and for the time I got to spend mentoring a truly remarkable human being,” Abbott said via text. “Though I may no longer be coaching Alysa, I will always be in her corner supporting her.”​

Thank you @ice coverage. I was reading on another board that Alysa had no sponsors. I should have done my own due diligence.

 

[moonvine]

You’ll get zero argument from me here on this one.

On the other hand, if you keep switching coaches and improving, doesn‘t that mean your instincts to move were right?

If she goes back to her old coaches, then that’s a big issue.

Eventually there won’t be coaches to switch to. I guess she could try going out of the US. There are only so many of them.

 

[moonvine]

That is under the assumption that an elite athlete would be eating that already. Newsflash: they probably aren't. Additionally, it is not recommended that athletes lose weight during the season. Only ever during the off season, and only very slowly with the help of a dietician.

The weight loss = jumps mindset is so damaging. She's already very lean (to the point it would take a lot to get much more off her) and there is so much visibly wrong with Alysa's technique that I'm sure she is working to fix. Nothing about her weight will ever change that technique.

Yes. Preach. Thank you. I think there was some mention somewhere of her saying she likes ice cream or even Goddess forbid picture of her eating ice cream and people think she’s going home and downing a pint a night or something.

 

[Lutzedge]

TSL made a video about Alysa Liu's change on their YouTube channel. They decided to begin their opening paragraph saying that Alysa fired Jeremy and Massimo! Typical TSL!

 

[Amei]

TSL made a video about Alysa Liu's change on their YouTube channel. They decided to begin their opening paragraph saying that Alysa fired Jeremy and Massimo!

TSL usually has some good info, but they are so into creating drama, I do not watch them. Which is a shame, their post-competition analysis were usually pretty good.

 

[skatingiscool]

You’ll get zero argument from me here on this one.

On the other hand, if you keep switching coaches and improving, doesn‘t that mean your instincts to move were right?

If she goes back to her old coaches, then that’s a big issue.

Yup. Karen stays with her coach Tammy for long time. The result ??? Karen skates the same way with no improvement.

When Alina announced that she was skating to NEW programs at Skate Canada, all the people on forum thinks it's a bad idea. It proves that the "change" is necessary because the old programs just didn't work.

 

[OnTheIceFifty1Years]

As per her dad:

Asked why change, Arthur Liu wrote: "Alysa greatly appreciates both Massimo and Jeremy and I also thank both of them for taking care of her. I felt Alysa needed more intensity in her training and the coaches and I were not on the same page as to how the training should be."

So, any credit or blame later on should go to dad. Haha

If you click on the Twitter-link there is more information about the change. It seems she/her father isn´t satisfied with the time the current coaching team spend on her. All though I can understand the problems, it seems like a big risk taking now with the time it takes to adjust to new coache

Why bash her dad? He's a paying customer. If it were my kid I would err on the side of safety send them to a coach with a track record of producing an Olympic medalist. I'm sure Scali and Abbott are lovely people and great skaters but Alysa is their first major client.

Massimo worked with Zueva for many, many years. So no this is not his first major client.

 

[OnTheIceFifty1Years]

i can't help but think this was mostly a knee jerk reaction to how she was scored at NHK. maybe we aren't getting the full scope here, but the quote from Arthur gives me some really weird helicopter parent vibes, like this wasn't a decision made jointly with Alysa. not to mention this was a really risky decision to make 6 weeks from nationals.

As i would hope Arthur knows at this point, if it had to do with NHK, judging is subjective and she may not have been scored the same had she skated the same elsewhere. i don't think it's fair to jump the gun because of the URs. coaching changes take a long time, at least a year and a half to two years, to really cement in a student and it hasn't even a year yet, not to mention Alysa could have just had an off day. will he do the same if she has the same result shortly after this change? what if she misses the team?

as far as i'm concerned unless there is abuse or something serious, a parent shouldn't be making decisions for their skater as far as their training intensity and methods, unless they are a former competitive skater themselves. unless Alysa went to him with her own concerns and the idea to move, leave the skating to the skater, the coaching to the coaches and other trainers- people who are experts and skilled in what they are doing. parents don't know best when it comes to this.

i really hope this was the right move and Alysa agrees with it.

Well said. Thank you.

 

[Ic3Rabbit]

Massimo worked with Zueva for many, many years. So no this is not his first major client.

Agreed. Just as Abbott worked under the tutelage of Yuka Sato for years as well as being a choreographer to start.

 

[OnTheIceFifty1Years]

For those comparing this to Gracie Gold switching to Frank before USNats. Gracie had huge athletic ability and huge (rotated) jumps. What she needed from Frank was refinement and his political connections. She never needed help with jumps, because big jumps came natural to her.
Alysa is in peak form with two great programs. She is well trained, well conditioned, great stamina. She will win Nationals easily, because the U.S. women are very weak this year. But Daddy Liu, while your daughter has a great work ethic, and somehow, despite your influence, has managed to be a well adjusted, lovely, young lady, she does not have the natural athletic jumping ability of a Gracie Gold, Young You, Higuchi Wakaba, Veronika Zhillina or whatever Russian girls end up making it to the Olympics. You can hire every coach on the planet, and this will never change, that sort of leg strength is something you are born with, it isn't something you can aquire. (When she was 4'7" she could hide her lack of raw athletic ability with rotation speed, but now her jumps are smallish, and they will stay smallish.)
Maybe, Daddy Liu, you should celebrate the enormous progress she has made, celebrate how much she has achieved in this sport through enormous hard work, and understand that every athlete has limitations. What she should be doing now, is, chilling Tapering, the hard work is done. Running through the program, correcting small issues, BUT NOT a desperate, last minute, frantic attempt to become a top level jumper. Everything that Alysa could do to become a top level skater, she has done, within her skill set.

Yet you have no idea what Scali and Abbott's long term goals were with her because they kept it quiet and didn't feel the need to state private info in a PR "try make everything look perfect" article.

An excellent point.

 

[Skater Boy]

I can't wait to see Liu at Nationals. WE will see if this was all worth it I guess. She looks so much like a woman and really improved her skating skills and performance. Krall did amazing things with Patrick and Liu is more talented jump wise so who knows. Liu wants to be the best and has the resources so more power to her. She will definitely be key to the US winning team gold or having a chance.