Alysa Liu is doing things her way in pursuit of a gold medal

Consider this: Liu fell on the third jumping pass in her first event of her comeback, in September 2024. Since then, she has had 210 jumps over 143 jumping passes without a fall – a remarkable consistency, notwithstanding that many of those jumps got negative grades of execution.

“She has an incredible ability to feel all the aspects of the jump as it is happening,” DiGuglielmo said. “She can make technical adjustments and not be judgmental and let it bother her.

“She just is in the moment. Plus, she gets the pure enjoyment and satisfaction of landing a great jump.”

Her four jumps in this Olympic short program included a triple Lutz-triple loop combination, the most difficult (and valuable in terms of points) combination attempted by any of the 29 competitors. The landing of the loop was solid but fell slightly short of three rotations, bringing a penalty. It was still worth just .03 less than the highest-scored combination in the event.

“I thought she was amazing,” Scali said. “She was calm, she was focused, she was present.

“And I think that she’s really embracing this experience 100%, enjoying every time on the ice and outside. And it’s beautiful to see her so happy.”

Liu already has a gold medal from the team event, in which she skated the short program. She will be hard-pressed to hold off the redoubtable Sakamoto, a three-time world champion, in the free skate.

“Do you feel like you can beat the Japanese?” a journalist asked her after the short program.

“I don’t think about stuff like that,” Liu said. “Whether I beat them or not is not my goal.  My goal is just to do my programs and share my story. And I don’t need to be over or under anyone to do that.”

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at 13 straight Olympics, is a special contributor to NBCOlympics.com.