Alysa LIU (USA)

FOR NEARLY A DECADE, four-time Olympian Kostner, 32, has been an exemplar of both figure skating artistry and of using athletic skating qualities, like speed, to increase the point-getting value of that artistry.

Kostner, the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist, 2012 world champion and five-time European champion, left competitive skating after the 2018 season. She had remained a contender against far more advanced jumpers at the end of her career because of her consummate skating skills, such as the flow of her edges across the ice, and because of the elegance of her body line and of her ability to reach audiences on an emotional level.

Kostner and Liu have the same choreographer, the estimable Lori Nichol, with whom the Italian has collaborated since 2006 and Liu since last spring. Once she knew Liu would be working with her, Nichol asked Kostner to join the process. Kostner agreed immediately.

“Lori is my mentor and inspiration,” Kostner said in a phone interview from New Brunswick, Canada a week before she finished performing on the two-month-long Rock the Rink tour. “She taught me how to connect skating with art. I give back to her and help her any way I can.”

Liu was thrilled.

“When I heard she was going to help me, I was like, ‘No way. She is one of the most beautiful skaters in the world,’” Liu said. “It is an honor to work with her.”

Kostner would work with Liu for two weeks last April at a rink in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hills. Before the first session, Kostner had watched video of Liu’s triumphant, historic performances at last year’s U.S. Championships, where Liu, then 13, became the youngest U.S. singles champion ever, the first U.S. woman to land a triple Axel in the short program and the first to land two triple Axels in the free skate. Such jumps – and two errorless performances – allowed Liu easily to overcome a double-digit PCS gap against 20-somethings Bradie Tennell and Mariah Bell, who each fell in the free skate and finished second and third.

“I admired Alysa before meeting her,” Kostner said, “and I admired her even more after for her work ethic, her eagerness to learn and her humbleness to say, ‘Oh, yeah, that was wrong. I’m going to try it again and see how I can make it work.’”

Kostner and Nichol have been together so long the skater knows intuitively how to process what the choreographer tells her to do. When she saw that Liu sometimes was unfamiliar with what Nichol was asking of her, Kostner would explain it, usually by doing the movement herself or doing it alongside Liu. Sometimes, the veteran would simply share what was involved in every aspect of being an elite skater.

Among the many things they worked on, Kostner said, were line, speed, jump landings, and how to push off to start moving. They also focused on range of crossovers, when to make the crossovers short and fast, when to make them big and long.

“That’s a great start in showing a difference in her skating,” Kostner said of the varied crossovers. “To not be just busy, busy, busy but to show gliding ability, holding positions, elegance and effortlessness by doing a simple thing like a crossover in amazingly different ways. I think it is starting to show.”

For several years after Kostner won her first Italian senior title at age 15, she had simply bounded around the ice with the unfettered energy of a frolicsome fawn. Her first European medal, a bronze in 2006, came with PCS scores averaging in the mid-to-low 7s, not much above Liu’s scores on the Junior Grand Prix this season. PCS scoring certainly has been affected by grade inflation in recent seasons, but until the latter half of her 18-year senior career Kostner was recognized as much or more for her speed and enthusiasm as for her artistry.

“It’s not just a process of the body, of learning things and putting them into action, but also of the mind, of the maturity of a person, of a girl slowly becoming an adult,” Kostner said. “Alysa is very aware of the steps she has to take, and I saw her ready to take those steps and also to have the patience to go through the steps. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Both look at what they have done together so far as the start of a long-term relationship. Since April, they have used video and video chat to continue the work. They plan another series of live sessions together in Italy after the Junior Grand Prix Final.

“Carolina has seen my Junior Grand Prix [performances], and obviously she saw some improvements, but there still are a lot of things I need to fix in my skating skills and other areas,” Liu said.