Alysa Liu having a blast during Winter Olympics that have been controversial and isolating

BEIJING — The 2022 Winter Olympics will likely be remembered as both controversial and isolating. They've featured political tensions and severe COVID-19 restrictions. Questions about the whereabouts of Peng Shuai and forced labor camps in Xinjiang. Plexiglass barriers. A Russian doping scandal. Complaints from athletes about quality of food and quarantine conditions.

But you wouldn't know any of that from talking with 16-year-old figure skater Alysa Liu.

"ITS BEEN SO FUN SO FAR," she wrote on Instagram last week.

The youngest athlete on Team USA in Beijing, Liu said she's been having a blast in her first trip to the Games, despite all the negativity surrounding them. She's made new friends…