San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Richmond skater Liu announces retirement
Richmond’s Alysa Liu, a 2022 Olympian and world championships bronze medalist, is retiring from competitive figure skating at age 16.
Considered the future of U.S. women’s skating and already a two-time national champion, Liu posted her decision Saturday on Instagram.
“I feel so satisfied with how my skating career has gone. now that i’m finally done with my goals in skating i’m going to be moving on with my life,” Liu said in her post.
Using the triple axel that few U.S. women have landed successfully, Liu won her first national title in 2019 at age 13, and repeated the next year. She was too young to compete internationally on the senior level, however, and remained a force as a junior, getting comfortable with quadruple jumps as well.
But she lost to Bradie Tennell and Mariah Bell at the last two national championships, making the Olympic team despite having to withdraw from the trials in January when Liu tested positive for the coronavirus.
Liu recovered in time to skate in the Beijing Games, where she landed seven triple jumps in her free skate to finish seventh overall.
Minnesota Twins 4-3. Cleveand Guardians outfielder Myles Straw agreed to a five-year, $25 million contract. Straw, 27, batted .285 with two homers and 13 steals in his two-month stint with Cleveland after being acquired from Houston last season . ... White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito, who started the team’s season opener Friday, will be placed on the 10-day injured list because of a lower abdominal strain.
NBA: Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid made his closing argument for MVP votes and improved his chances of winning the NBA scoring title by scoring 41 points, collecting 20 rebounds and dishing out four assists to lead the host 76ers to a 133-120 victory over the Indiana Pacers.
NHL: Nico Hischier and Pavel Zacha scored 10 seconds apart in the third period, and the New Jersey Devils beat the host Dallas Stars 3-1.
Soccer: With its 4-0 win at Aston Villa behind Son Heungmin’s hat trick and losses by both Arsenal and Manchester United, Tottenham now has a three-point cushion in fourth place in the English Premier League over Arsenal — which fell to visiting Brighton 2-1 for a third loss in fourth games . ... Manchester United is in seventh place, six points behind Tottenham after a 1-0 loss at Everton . ... Chelsea rolled to a 6-0 win over Southampton. In MLS play, Ercan Kara scored in the 59th minute to lead host Orlando City to a 1-0 victory over the Chicago Fire . ... Leonardo Campana scored in the 88th minute to finish off a hat trick as host Inter Miami beat New England 3-2.
Motor sports: Colton Herta broke the Long Beach track record in qualifying, and the California native will start from the pole for his home IndyCar race.
Herta turned a lap at 1 minute, 5.3095 seconds on the street course set-up through downtown Long Beach to earn his eighth career pole for Sunday’s race. The previous track record was 1:06.2254 set by Helio Castroneves in 2017.
Cycling: Daniel Martinez of Colombia won the six-day Basque Country Tour after he snatched the overall lead from Remco Evenepoel in the final stage in Madrid. Martinez finished the mountainous 89-mile stage from Eibar to Arrate in fourth, just behind stage winner Ion Izagirre. Izagirre finished runner-up in the race at 11 seconds behind Martinez. Aleksandr Vlasov completed the podium.