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Alysa Liu is the 13-year-old skating star everyone is talking about right now

Published 19:08 30 Jan 2019 GMT

Amy Nolan
Alysa Liu is the 13-year-old skating star everyone is talking about right nowAdd us as a preferred source on Google »

She became the first woman ever to land two triple axels in one programme.

When you think of figure skating legends, names like Tonya Harding, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean spring to mind. Now you can add Alysa Liu to that list. The 13-year-old dominated some worthy opponents at the US figure skating championships on Friday and became the third woman to land a triple axel cleanly at a US nationals after Tonya Harding (1991) and Kimmie Meissner (2005). On Friday, she became the first to land two in a program. Alysa finished with a total of 217.51 points. When her free skate score of 143.62 was revealed the skating star couldn't quite believe it and her reaction was priceless. And the exceptionally talented young woman was only competing with one person on the day - herself. She told NBC:
"I was just happy that I beat my personal record, and I did a clean long program."
At under five foot, Alysa is a small but mighty force to be reckoned with. In a moment of exceptional sportswomanship, Tennell and third-place winner Mariah Bell helped the champion climb onto her prime podium position. On the day, Tara Lipinski who previously held the record for youngest U.S. women’s champion, winning the 1997 championship when she was just 14 congratulated Alysa on her win saying, "records were made to be broken." Indeed, the future looks bright for Alysa Liu. By 2022, she will be 16 and able to compete in the Olympics and we're already looking forward to that stellar performance. 20x20 is an ambitious two-year long initiative to better promote and champion women in sport. With the tagline of "if she can't see it, she can't be it," the 20x20 movement has three targets to reach by 2020:
  • 20 percent more media coverage of women in sport
  • 20 percent more female participation
  • 20 percent more attendance at women’s competitions and events
And at Maximum Media, we're proud that Her and SportsJOE is backing the 20x20 movement as official digital media partners.

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