Winter Olympics 2026: Amber Glenn finds some redemption … just not enough for a medal

MILAN — Amber Glenn rarely masks what she’s feeling on the ice. The reigning U.S. champion can’t help but let her emotions play out all over her face, whether elation or desolation. She’s  probably a terrible poker player, but a magnetic presence as a skater.

Skating in Thursday’s free skate, starting from 13th position after a disastrous short program, Glenn strode toward the ice the moment her predecessor’s notes faded away. Wearing her Team USA warmup, she looped around the ice as the many United States fans in the crowd rose to their feet and waved American flags above her. And while her poise communicated confidence, her eyes looked more than a little nervous.

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Still, she tamped down whatever anxieties were within. She handed her coach Damon Allen her jacket, clasped hands with him, and then skated to center ice. And then her music — a medley of “I Will Find You” by Audiomachine and “The Return” by CLANN — began, and there was no more time for second thoughts or anxieties.

The moment she landed her first jump — the triple axel, one that virtually no other female skater even attempts — the crowd at Assago Ice Skating Arena exploded in delirious joy, as if exhaling in relief. Glenn went on to skate a strong routine worthy of her skills. Not the routine of her life, not a perfect routine — “this close,” she said to herself over a slight bobble late in her program — but a redemptive one.

She finished with a free-skate score of 147.52 to give her a total of 214.91, good enough to claim the leader’s couch with 12 skaters left to go. And then she was left to wait to see if somehow, some way, it would be good enough to land her on the podium. It wasn’t, as a flawless Alysa Liu took gold with a score of 226.79 and Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto (224.90) and Ami Nakai (219.16) won silver and bronze, respectively. Glenn finished in fifth place.

“A lot of what-ifs,” she said of her thoughts while sitting on the leader’s couch. “I didn’t want anyone to make a mistake, but I don’t want to go back (stage, off the couch), so it’s very conflicting. I was just glad I was able to see such a fantastic event up close.”

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Glenn and her Team USA teammates Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito arrived in Milan two weeks ago riding a surge of nationwide popularity. The “Blade Angels,” as they dubbed themselves, were a perfect trio — the heartfelt Glenn, the quirky Liu, the understated Levito. They’d shown so much talent, so much promise — all three are national champions — that talk of a podium sweep even took flight. At the very least, one of them would almost surely break the American medal drought that’s existed in women’s figure skating since 2006. It ended up being Liu after a flawless routine.

For Glenn, the first cracks started to show in the team event. Tasked with handling the free skate element — Liu had handled the women’s short program — Glenn was uncharacteristically tentative, ending her routine in third place.

“If an average person were to watch, they’d probably be like, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Just a few little things (went wrong), but as skating people we know, there were many, many, many points left out on the table,” Glenn said afterward. “I did not feel or perform the way I wanted to. I physically didn’t feel great. My legs were feeling heavy, I was tired, I just didn’t feel my best, and I’ve been practicing here incredibly.”

The United States still claimed the team gold for a second straight Olympics, but Glenn’s face betrayed her anguish and fear that she’d cost Team USA a gold right up until the final results were announced.

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“I think I had some fatigue and I need to really manage that going into the individual event,” Glenn said at the time. “But I’m really proud of the mental strength that I’ve built over the years to be able to get through some mistakes in the beginning and really fighting in the second half.”

She had no idea that much worse was yet to come. Glenn and her fellow Blade Angels had more than a week between the team event and their individual events, a long time to maintain Olympic-level intensity.

When Glenn finally took the ice for her short program, she began with a triple axel, a jump so difficult only one other skater in this year’s women’s event landed it. After another successful element, she prepared to do a triple loop, a relatively routine jump; virtually every Olympian on Tuesday’s program completed one. But a slight loss of balance meant she only did two loops instead of three, giving her zero points for the entire element.

That loss sent her plummeting down the standings; she finished the program in 13th place, more than 11 points behind leader Ami Nakai of Japan. She was visibly devastated, and left the arena after only the briefest of interviews.

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Glenn returned to the ice on Thursday night with an opportunity to rewrite her narrative. She did exactly that, and there was no mistaking how she felt once she did.

“I told myself, no matter how the program was going to go, I was going to look up and tell myself, ‘You’re at the Olympics,’ and I did that. I’m just really proud of that moment,” she said.

“ … It’s something I’ll never forget, and I’ve had the moment that I’ve always dreamed of. I’m really going to hang on to that.”