Alysa Liu mysteriously absent from World Championships roster in Prague

Less than a month after winning an Olympic gold medal, U.S. figure skating star Alysa Liu has surprisingly withdrawn from the World Skating Championships in Prague, Czech Republic.

Liu is no longer listed among the participants of the event on the International Skating Union (ISU) website. Her main spot is now filled by the second alternative, Sarah Everhardt.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Liu’s representatives for comment.

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No reason is known for Liu’s sudden absence from the squad at this time.

The change comes just days after Liu revealed on social media that he had recently been “chased” to his car by a spectator.

“So I land at the airport and there’s a crowd waiting at the exit with cameras and things I need to sign,” she wrote on her Instagram story. “This is all in my personal space. Someone chased me to my car, man. Please don’t do this to me.”

Liu previously entered temporary retirement shortly after her first Olympics appearance in 2022. His father, Arthur Liu, said it was due to “trauma”.

Arthur Liu told USA Today why he retired: “He got really unhappy.” “He avoided the ice rink at all costs. He was traumatized. He was just traumatized. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and wouldn’t even go near the ice rink.”

Before participating in the 2022 Beijing Games, he and his father were allegedly the targets of a Chinese government espionage operation. Liu described the experience as “a little strange and exciting.”

Gold medalist Alysa Liu of Team United States poses for a photo during the Women’s Single Skating medal ceremony at the Milan Ice Skating Arena of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy on February 19, 2026. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

“You know what I mean? It’s so… incredible. You know what I mean, it’s crazy,” he told Fox News Digital during a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.

“Like, imagine learning this at such a young age, so you’re weirdly like, ‘Am I like on a prank show?’ I thought. For example, is this world real? For example, I should be a movie character. But I mean, with everything my dad did in his activist days, it made sense to me.”

Arthur Liu told The Associated Press in 2022: “They’re probably trying to intimidate us, … they’re kind of threatening us to say nothing, to cause trouble for them, to say anything about political or human rights abuses in China. … I had concerns for her safety. The US government did a good job of protecting her.”

Liu returned to the sport only two years later, in 2024. By March 2025, she was already making history for Team USA, becoming the first American to qualify for the World Figure Skating Championships in 19 years. Then in February, she made history by becoming the first American to win Olympic gold in the women’s individual figure skating competition since 2002 and the first American woman to medal in the event since 2006.

Following the historic victory, there was a huge increase in popularity.

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Alysa Liu of Team United States performs her women’s singles skating routine during the Figure Skating Exhibition Gala on day fifteen of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Milan Ice Skating Arena on February 21, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Before the Olympics, she had fewer than 300,000 followers on Instagram. It surpassed 5 million just a week after the end of the Olympics. Now, at the time of publication, there are over 7.4 million people.

But it looks like most of his new fans won’t be able to see him race in Prague anymore.

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