That new version of Liu was plain in her 2 minutes, 50 seconds of sensitive skating to the Laufey song, “Promise,” which tells a love story similar to that of her relationship with the sport. There is a breakup with the promise of no future contact, until the realization that the love still is there.

Amber Glenn repeated as U.S. figure skating champion, overtaking Alysa Liu by the second-closest margin under a two-decade-old scoring system. Glenn totaled 216.79 points between Thursday’s short program and Friday’s free skate in Wichita, Kansas. She turned a 5.45-point deficit to Liu after the short to a victory over Liu by 1.46 points.