Lessons in Freedom—from Jimmy Lai and My Daughter Alysa

Any father would be proud to see his daughter win an Olympic gold medal. But when I watched my daughter Alysa’s stunning performance in the women’s free skate earlier this month, it hit me in a way that I think was different from what just about anybody else experienced. Sportscasters commented on the ebullient joy that enveloped her technical brilliance. That’s not something we heard very often in the past. Alysa had been through years of hard training and pressure to excel (some from her father, I will allow) and once quit the sport. But in Milan, somehow, she had transcended all of that to arrive at a higher level, a more joyous place. She had left all that pressure behind. One sportswriter wrote, “Liu wasn’t chasing a gold medal. She was free.”