Alysa Liu takes surprise lead at figure skating world championships, capping her sensational return to the sport

(CNN) — Almost three years after stepping away from the sport, American figure skater Alysa Liu is on the verge of winning a world championship title in stunning and unlikely fashion.

The 19-year-old Liu, who had retired from figure skating after claiming a bronze medal at the 2022 world championships, placed first in the short program at this year’s event in Boston with a score of 74.58 points.

Should she take the title, Liu would became the first American women’s figure skating world champion since Kimmie Meissner in 2006.

Isabeau Levito, last year’s runner-up, is also in contention to end that drought having placed third in the short program on Wednesday, while reigning US champion Amber Glenn is back in ninth.

Liu made history in 2019 as the youngest person to win an individual title at the US figure skating championships, aged just 13. She won again the following year, seemingly destined to become one of the biggest stars in her sport.

But having competed at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and medaled at the world championships a few weeks later, Liu announced that she was retiring from figure skating at the age of 16. At the time, she explained that she was “satisfied” with her career, “done” with her goals and ready to be “moving on with my life.”

Now, Liu says that she feels reinvigorated after her self-imposed break from the sport.

“I think that I have good intuition, and I have learned to trust it,” she said on Thursday, per US Figure Skating. “I don’t think that I would be where I am right now if I had not listened to myself. Others told me that I was making a mistake, but I knew that I was doing what was right for me.”

Liu announced that she was resuming her training in March last year before returning to competitions several months later.

Her performance on Wednesday was the California native’s highest-ever short score in an international competition and included a triple flip-triple toe loop combination and a triple Lutz.

Japan’s Mone Chiba was second with 73.44 points, narrowly ahead of Levito, who is returning from a foot injury, on 73.33. Three-time defending world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan was fifth with 71.03 points, while Glenn, who fell on her triple Axel, scored 67.65.

The women’s singles competition will conclude with the free skate on Friday, which begins at 6 p.m. ET.

The opening of this year’s world championships was also a poignant occasion as the figure staking community paid tribute to those who died in a plane crash in Washington, DC, earlier this year.

The midair collision between American Airlines flight 5342 and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on January 29 claimed the lives of 67 people. That included 11 young figure skaters, four coaches and 13 family members who had attended the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.

“For those who have experience deep loss, we know that time does not simply erase pain,” Kim Jae-youl, president of the International Skating Union (ISU), said during the world championships at Boston’s TD Garden. “For many of us, it feels like we are frozen in time.”

A video montage of the athletes who lost their lives was played on big screens at the venue, while a choir dressed in black performed a tribute to the victims.

Doug Lane, whose son Spencer and wife Christine were among those killed in the crash, also addressed those in attendance.

“Take extra care to lift up the young skaters that are still here,” he said, per the Associated Press. “They’re hurting. I hope we can support them in their skating journeys, but I also hope we can help them find happiness off the ice as well.”

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