Alysa Liu walked away from skating. Her fresh outlook when she returned helped her win Olympic gold. – Chicago Tribune

MILAN — Alysa Liu probably cared the least of all the women in figure skating at the Milan Cortina Olympics about winning the gold medal.

Maybe that’s why she won it.

The 20-year-old with striped hair, prominent frenulum piercing and carefree attitude never showed the slightest worry or tension as she took the ice for her free skate Thursday night. Instead, Liu greeted her friends and family in the stands, smiled throughout her routine and acted as if she was going through just another training session at the Oakland Ice Center in California.

“My family is there. My friends are there. I had to put on a show for them,” Liu said afterward. “When I see other people smiling, because I see them in the audience, then I have to smile too. I don’t have a straight face.”

Her team was all smiles after the conclusion of Donna Summer’s version of “MacArthur Park.” Liu earned a score of 226.79 points, allowing her to overtake silver medalist Kaori Sakamoto and her Japanese teammate Ami Nakai, who won bronze.

Liu’s coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo and Massimo Scali, embraced each other, happy to know that a comeback two years in the making had achieved something incredible: the first gold medal in women’s figure skating for the United States since Sarah Hughes in 2002.

Members of Liu’s family stood and applauded, as did the rest of the crowd inside the Milan rink.

There is no doubt that every U.S. figure skating official and every member of its Olympic team also felt a surge of joy. Or relief. These Winter Games have been frustrating on many levels, starting with controversial ice dance scores that denied Madison Chock and Evan Bates the gold medal, and continuing through Ilia Malinin’s struggles in her free skate earlier in the week.

The only golden moment until Thursday evening was the team event, when Liu helped the United States defend its Olympic title.

“If I had a nickel for every gold medal I have here,” Liu joked, “I’d have two!”

It’s the kind of “dad joke” only Liu would make after triumphing on figure skating’s biggest stage.

Four years ago, the daughter of a Chinese immigrant was in a much different mental state. Liu had just finished sixth at the Beijing Games as a 16-year-old prodigy, but she might as well have finished last. She was so exhausted from figure skating that her dominant thought after the Olympic free skate was relief that the event was over, rather than pride in what she had accomplished.

He was the kid we dropped off at the rink in the morning and picked up in the evening. His childhood was focused on practice and not on his own choice. When she became the youngest United States champion at age 13 and defended her title the following year, it only upped the ante among those who saw her follow in the footsteps of Kristi Yamaguchi, Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski.

Liu was trying to fit the mold that everyone wanted for her.

So she stopped. I left. Suddenly, she decided to retire after the Beijing Games, leaving all that mental tension behind.

For two years, Liu did whatever she wanted, which had little to do with skating. She went on backpacking trips with friends and began studying psychology at UCLA. She got the frenulum piercing that shows on her front teeth when she smiles. In short, she became her own person, whose individualism made her a hero among alt, emo and punk audiences.

She broke almost every model of a figure skater.