Who knows how much is true or the kind of fairytale the Olympics likes to trumpet, but the outcome can’t be disputed. Alysa Liu just won the first gold medal in women’s figure skating since 2002. The 20-year-old took a two-year break from the sport, then returned to win the world championship and a spot on the Olympic team.

In interviews before clinching the top spot on the podium, she insisted she had nothing to prove. She was already an Olympian. Now she just had to skate, to bring joy to the ice.

When she bounced out onto the rink yesterday with her ombre ponytail flying, she was the antithesis of the tightly coiffed young women who took the stage before her. Some of them skated more elegantly than she did. But Liu skated as if she’d just been released from an earthbound cage into her true element. She jumped and landed, skipped and soared, her striped hair barely tied back, the sequins on her gold costume gleaming.

In the end it was not the “Quad God” who captured our hearts, but this ebullient young skater. Liu reminds us why we should do things in the first place — because we love to do them.

(Photo: Wikipedia)