Behind 2x Olympic medalist Alysa Liu’s smile lies the trauma she has gone through. Liu, whose latest wins came with two gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina in February, faced a frightening situation just before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Then 16, while preparing to represent the U.S., Alysa’s father, Arthur Liu, a longtime Chinese dissident who took part in pro democracy protests after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, was targeted in a Chinese spying operation. Now, years later, Arthur Liu has shared new details about the ordeal.

Speaking before a congressional commission in Washington on June 5, Arthur recalled the fear he thought he had left behind when he fled China decades ago. “Like many refugees, I believed that once I arrived in America, I had left political persecution behind me,” he said. “But an incident in late 2021 proved me wrong.”

According to Arthur, concerns about his family may have intensified because of a social media post Alysa shared years earlier. “Alysa posted a piece of news about the human rights violations in Xinjiang back in 2018, when she was only 12, 13 years old,” he said. “And I guess the Chinese government never forgot about that.”

At that time, Alysa Liu was expected to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. And that means she, along with her father, had to travel to China. But then, in late 2021, Arthur received a phone call from a man claiming to be an official with the USOPC. The caller requested passport information for both Arthur and Alysa as part of what was described as international travel preparations for the upcoming Games.

Suspicious of the request, Arthur declined. “He gave me a fax number for me to fax our passports to him. And I told him I would do it the next day. I never did. I was smarter than that,” Arthur recalled. Then a few days later, he said he received another call, this time from the FBI. Arthur said an FBI agent asked to meet him at a Starbucks and informed him that a Chinese operative was already in the San Francisco Bay Area gathering information about him.

“He would be tracking my movement. He would be surveilling my daily activities. He would be placing a GPS tracker on my car,” Arthur testified. “And he would try to collect our personal information, like Social Security numbers and particularly our passport information.” The warning left Arthur deeply concerned, especially with Alysa Liu’s Olympic debut approaching.

“I was very worried when I heard the news because Alyssa was most likely going to Beijing,” he said. “I was also concerned that the spy might do something to her in the United States.” At the time, Alysa was competing in Japan. When she returned to the United States, Arthur had her immediately moved to another training location away from the San Francisco Bay Area. Then came what he described as the most chilling moment of the entire ordeal.

“As we were boarding the plane, I received a phone call from the FBI,” Arthur recalled. “He told me that the spy was right on his way to our house. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a scene right out of a movie.” According to Arthur, federal agents informed him they were prepared to arrest those involved. However, with Alysa set to compete in Beijing, he worried about potential consequences while she was in China.

“But as a father, I was terrified for the safety of Alyssa when she goes to Beijing to compete for the United States of America,” he said. “So I told them, can you please wait until she comes back from the Olympic Games?” Arthur said he also requested additional security measures for his daughter during the Beijing Olympics. According to his testimony, Alysa Liu was accompanied by two adults while moving between venues throughout the Games.

Months later, on March 16, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges against 5 individuals accused of participating in efforts to monitor and harass Chinese dissidents living in the United States. One of those charged was Matthew Ziburis, who prosecutors alleged posed as an Olympic official while attempting to obtain information from Arthur Liu.

Arthur said he later learned the man had allegedly been seen near his office building multiple times. “When the news came out, a neighbor from my office came over and told me that he had seen this guy…,” Arthur recalled. “He was lingering in the lobby right in front of my office.” Today, Alysa Liu is an Olympic champion with two gold medals to her name. But it wasn’t just her father who was affected by the ordeal. Liu also went through a traumatic experience as a teenager.

Alysa Liu skated through fear at the Olympics

At just 20, Alysa Liu has already won Olympic gold at the 2026 Milan Games. She first shocked the figure skating world in 2022 outside the ice rink when the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that she and her father had been targeted in a Chinese spying operation. When she later competed in China, it meant more than just Olympic pressure. It was also her first time visiting her father Arthur’s homeland, a place he had left decades earlier as a refugee.

Looking back, Liu described the whole experience as “a little bit freaky and exciting.” Her training for the Olympics was unusual because her father told her that their family had been followed by Chinese agents. Alysa Liu remembered sitting down with an FBI agent at a Japanese restaurant, hearing about the spying firsthand. “Like, imagine finding that out at such a young age,” she said. “I was like, ‘Am I in some prank show? Is this world real? Am I a movie character?’ But it made sense to me, considering everything my dad did as an activist.”

She added that the FBI made her feel safe throughout the situation. Yet the threat was real even during the Games. Liu recounted being approached late one night at a cafeteria after her free skate event by a stranger who followed her and asked her to come to his apartment.

“I’ve kind of accepted my life to be like this…,” Arthur Liu said. ” I’m not going to let this push me down, and I’m not going to let them succeed.” As a teenager, she had to process that her family was being watched, that their safety had been threatened, and do it all while chasing the highest levels of her sport.