Alysa Liu on top of the world, a startling position after two years away from skating

BOSTON — During her two-year retirement from figure skating, Alysa Liu joined four friends in May 2003 on a 40-mile trek to Mount Everest base camp, some 17,500 feet above sea level.

That was nothing compared to the trip Liu made Friday, climbing to the top of the world in her sport, a result that is one of the biggest surprise endings in figure skating’s long history. It seemed beyond the realm of comprehension even to Liu.

She did it by being unabashedly, completely herself, a 19-year-old who mixes adult maturity with teenage goofiness, as she did when asked by rinkside host Ashley Wagner how it felt to be world champion.

“Just, what the hell?” she told the sellout crowd at TD Garden, which had roared and stomped and clapped so loudly near the end of the program it drowned out the million-decibel Donna Summer music.

What the hell, indeed?

How could she become the first U.S. woman to win a world title since Kimmie Meissner in 2006, after having returned to international competition only last October, her first since winning a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships.

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At that point three years ago, she no longer felt any joy over skating and retired, seemingly for good. Liu threw her old skates in closet in her family’s house near Oakland, Calif., and had no idea where they were when she decided in December 2023 not only to skate for the first time in 18 months but also to plan a return to competition.

How, after all that, could she skate better than she ever had before, commanding the ice to win both the short program and free skate without a single error to dethrone Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto, who had won the last three titles?

No wonder Liu kept saying, “What? What?” as she skated around after the free skate. She was having trouble grasping what she had done.

“I’ve been saying to myself all season that is the best short program in the world,” said Phillip DiGuglielmo, who coaches Liu with Massimo Scali. “Then all of a sudden it became the best short program in the world and then the skater became the best skater in the world.”

Liu scored international personal bests in both programs and wound up with 222.97 points, 4.99 more than Sakamoto. Her U.S. teammates, Isabeau Levito finished fourth and fifth, respectively, giving Team USA three women in the top five at worlds for the first time since 2001.

“Even yesterday (the day after the short program), I didn’t expect this,” Liu said.

She and Sakamoto, 24, shared a long hug after the results were final. They had shared the podium at Liu’s previous worlds in 2022.

“I wouldn’t say she has changed,” Sakamoto said through a translator. “I feel her cheerfulness, her kindness and the way she’s always so happy brought her to the top of the podium. (But) if I would say something has changed, it is she is more bright, more happy now.”

Liu was a child prodigy who had become, at age 13, the youngest U.S. champion in history in 2019. Soon after, as she tried to fulfill others’ expectations and follow the course her father set for her, skating became not only a job, but an onerous one.

The difference in Liu’s attitude was clear when she turned a cartwheel while taking the ice for her short program. She feigned the start of one before the free, then wagged her finger to say not now.

The next cartwheel came before she skated out for the medal ceremony. And she stuck the landing.

Liu had cleanly landed seven triple jumps in the short program. She had been an inconsistent jumper in the past.

“I don’t know how she did it because she didn’t skate for two years, but she came back stronger than before,” Scali said. “She stopped growing and matured physically. She’s very powerful.”

That said, getting her back in shape for a four-minute free skate was a challenge.

“It was really hard this season,” DiGuglielmo said. “The stamina was so tough.”

Yet Liu simply plowed on. She took a leave from UCLA to focus on skating. Her heart was fully invested, and she was determined to be, as the coach puts it, “100 percent Alysa.”

“Alysa is not the same as the rest of us,” DiGuglielmo said. “We have doubt. It doesn’t occur to her to have doubt. I’ll say, `You want to put your skates on, you’re on in three minutes,’ and she will answer, `I can do it in two.’

“If I was having a trauma, I would want her to be the surgeon.”

Now she is the world champion, a year before the Olympics. Operation Alysa Comeback is a success.