At fourteen, she was the first American woman of any age to land a quadruple jump. Quads, too, had once been rare—even among male skaters—but the Russians were turning out skater after skater who could land quads, even in combination. Liu was not known for her artistic prowess or for her ability to turn skating into an electrical conduit for an emotional connection with the crowd, but her jumping talent vaulted her into the ranks of skaters with enough technical difficulty in their programs to achieve high scores. She won a second U.S. title, too. But she grew three inches in a year, and the COVID pandemic derailed her training. She gave up practicing quads, and stopped landing a triple axel in competition. When the Beijing Olympics came around, she was the Americans’ best hope, but no one was realistically talking about medals. The Russians could have fielded two teams of skaters who could plausibly land quads and triple axels. Led by a coach, Eteri Tutberidze, who weighed her skaters by the gram and, without apology, once invited a comparison of herself to Cruella de Vil, Russia seemed to mint one prodigy after another. At the Games, only the Japanese skater Kaori Sakamoto, who made up for a lack of difficulty with excellent execution and blazing speed, was thought to stand a chance.