Amber Glenn’s improbable U.S. figure skating title was a test of survival

Amber Glenn’s improbable U.S. figure skating title was a test of survival

COLUMBUS, Ohio – What does it say about the state of American women’s figure skating that the top two finishers at the U.S. championships ended their performances Friday night sitting forlornly on the ice with their heads buried in their hands?

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Two years remain before the start of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games and it’s hard to know who might offer the U.S. women’s best hope for a medal. Is it Amber Glenn, the Texan with mighty jumps and so much power and potential? With a chance to win nationals for the first time, she stumbled through her free skate Friday and left the ice certain she had lost. Is it Isabeau Levito, the defending U.S. champion who needed just to skate cleanly to win for a second straight time only to fall on three jumps and tumble to third place, leaving Glenn to win gold?

Maybe it can be 15-year-old Josephine Lee who glided into second place after Levito’s collapse? Or perhaps Sarah Everhardt, the fourth-place Pewter Medal winner from Haymarket, Va., who trains with Ilia Malinin, the American star who seems ready to contend for Olympic gold in two years.

As Friday night turned to Saturday morning, the answer was not clear as the four medalists sat behind a dais deep below Nationwide Arena and tried to sort out the queasy emotion of wearing medals but not being sure what to say.

“A mix of being extremely grateful for this result, but also knowing that I can do so much better,” said Glenn.

“I still don’t know how to feel,” added Lee, who was happy “to put two programs together,” after a disastrous start at last year’s nationals.

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“I’m really disappointed with my skate today,” Levito said before adding: “it’s all learning experience.”

It was a strange night at a strange time for women’s figure skating in the United States. U.S. women used to routinely win medals at Olympics but haven’t done so since Sasha Cohen took silver in 2006. With the Russians out of the world picture as punishment for the war in Ukraine, there is no certainty a Russian skating team will be in Milan, allowing an opening for the American skaters. And yet Friday offered little evidence the United States is ready to seize that chance, or any chance.

“I still don’t know how to feel,” said Josephine Lee, 15, who finished in second place after defending champion Isabeau Levito faltered. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Levito seemed to have momentum after her nationals victory last year and two Grand Prix wins this past fall, but a disastrous short program at the Grand Prix final preceded her crashes Friday night. She said her free skate here was “like a fever dream,” because she was so “shaky and nervous” about defending her title. Her first fall woke her up — “I was like ‘what am I doing?’ ” she said. She had no idea how she fell the other two times, only that she had landed on the ice after each and had lost her shot at another gold.

She appeared to cry as she skated off the ice and stared sadly at the camera when awaiting her score, frowning as she made a heart with her hands. She wouldn’t look as her score was announced, dropping her head as if already certain she would finish in third.

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Meanwhile, Glenn, who at 24 has endured years of disappointments and near misses in a career once filled with hope, figured she had wasted her best chance at a U.S. championship. The night before she had cruised through a sizzling short program with aggressive jumps and a fire that she later admitted she had to try to douse just to focus on the skate at hand. But halfway through Friday’s free skate, her energy waned. She made mistakes on two jumps and when she was done, forced a smile as she skated glumly off the ice.

“Drastic for sure,” is how she described those few minutes in which she went from a blown chance to an improbable victory.

“It was a mixture of happiness, of course,” she continued. “And, you know, this wasn’t exactly how I wanted to get my first national title but I’m incredibly thankful for it.”

Then, in perhaps the oddest assessment offered by a nationals winner about herself and another medalist she observed: “It wasn’t Isabeau’s and my night, but I know going forward and for (world championships) I assume, we can go out and redeem ourselves.”

Sitting beside Glenn, Levito shook her head softly and looked down.

Inside the arena, the crowd didn’t seem to care how Glenn won. She is popular with skating fans for the way she has fought through the dark parts of her career and the fact she has spoken openly about her sexuality. The fact she is the first known U.S. women’s champion to identify as queer delighted many fans who waved Pride flags and shouted her name.

Finally, nearly a half-hour after what had the potential to be a disastrous night, she beamed as fans reached out to touch her hand. Someone handed her a Pride flag and she draped it around herself. Once again, she started to cry.

For a moment, the worries about another Olympics could wait. Glenn started to skate circles around the emptying arena, the Pride flag on her shoulders, a gold medal around her neck and the understanding that she was at last the American champion in a way no one could have ever imagined.