Alysa Liu Is Untouchable

When athletes are said to thrive under pressure, that generally does not mean that they do not feel it. Rather, the common understanding is that athletes, or at least the great ones, are capable of taking pressure and turning it into fuel. That thermodynamic process is a part of the incomprehensible psychology necessary to reach the pinnacle of competitive athletic greatness. What better source is there for relentless motivation than wanting something so badly, or having something to prove?

Alysa Liu has no need for any of that nonsense. Where ordinary—or even extraordinary—athletes might be fueled by pressure, she simply doesn't feel any, ever. She thrives because she is immune. It was always understood that Liu could win gold at the Olympics, but with her technical content, she would need other skaters—say, Kaori Sakamoto, Ami Nakai, and Amber Glenn—to make errors. That assumption, however, always took one thing for granted: Of course Liu herself would never falter.

And of course she would never falter! Listening to Liu, it's so easy to forget the broader narrative of there not having been an Olympic women's singles figure-skating medalist from the United States since Sasha Cohen won silver in 2006. A storyline can overwhelm a skater, but Liu is untouched by externalities. She takes an artist's pleasure in sharing her work with a broader audience, but other than that, she appears—or, at this point, with qualifiers surely unnecessary, simply is—so self-possessed that everything she does is truly for herself. If there were any doubts about Liu's mentality, she dismissed them on Thursday, by executing under benthic pressure when no one else could and walking away, unscathed, with a gold medal.