MILAN — The Olympics took Amber Glenn’s joy away. On Thursday night, she made herself find it.
‘I told myself,’ Glenn said, ‘no matter what, in that spiral you’re gonna look up, and you’re gonna say, ‘I’m at the Olympics.’ And I was really proud I was able to do that.’
Her team event free skate was ‘lackluster’ (Glenn’s word). Her individual short program was ‘devastating.’ But her women’s free skate. Oh, her women’s free skate was magnificent.
‘I’m a fighter, and I’m resilient,’ Glenn said. ‘And you never know what’s gonna happen, because I never thought I’d even be here. And to be top five is incredible.’
Glenn started the night 13th (67.39) and ended it two spots shy of a medal (214.91). Just like the end of her short program, Glenn clutched her chest, this time without any tears of anguish. Instead, a satisfied nod precipitated by passionate fist pumps and triumphant screams.
She opened the free skate with a pristine triple Axel met by raucous applause from inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena. Her music – ‘I Will Find You’ by The Return – swelled as a soft, garnet-painted smile spread across her face. All eyes followed her navy blue silhouette gliding across the ice. Goosebumps enveloped every limb in the building but had nothing to do with the cold.
A stark contrast to her two previous outings.
Guilt consumed Glenn after her performance in the team event Feb. 8. She stumbled in the beginning, recovered later on and posted a 138.62 score – 11.88 lower than her score at the U.S. Championships last month. When Ilia Malinin clinched gold for Team USA, she was relieved.
‘I felt like I left so much pressure on him, and he’s already under so much pressure being hailed as ‘Quad God’ and all that,” she said. “He stepped up, like we all knew he would, but I was just really grateful.’
Disappointment defined her short program Tuesday. Even after Madonna, the Queen of Pop and singer of Glenn’s choice song ‘Like A Prayer,’ wished her luck. A gorgeous start – triple Axel, the routine’s most difficult element – set ablaze by an incomplete triple loop. She botched her favorite jump in figure skating, bailing after two rotations and invalidating the element.
And she knew immediately.
That failed triple loop stole her joy. The joy she fought years to regain.
She struggled mightily on the ice, too, entering a ‘fight or flight state’ when adrenaline and nerves crept up in competition. One wrong move, and she’d never recover. Every remaining element would suffer.
On top of seeking treatment for her mental health struggles, Glenn added sports psychology to her training. She embraced a technique called “neurofeedback,” which allowed her to steady her heart rate during stressful moments. After years of hard work, she started seeing results.
Glenn won the 2025 Grand Prix and became the first American woman since Michelle Kwan to win three consecutive national figure skating titles (2024-26). It all culminated in her qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
Her troubles started when she got to Milan.
On Feb. 4 — two days before the opening ceremony — Glenn, who came out as pansexual and bisexual in 2019, was asked about the Trump administration’s impact on LGBTQ Americans. She said ‘it’s been a hard time for the community overall,” adding ‘It is something that I will not just be quiet about, because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives.”
A sentiment echoed by several Team USA athletes during these Games, and one Vice President JD Vance did not vibe with.
‘You’re there to play a sport, and you’re there to represent your country and hopefully win a medal,’ Vance said. ‘You’re not there to pop off about politics.’
Glenn’s immediate main takeaway from these Games, she said Thursday night, was the hope that ‘we can find a way to support our athletes’ after seeing ‘some really disturbing things when it comes to all three of us (U.S. women’s skaters)’ online. It dimmed an experience Glenn dreamed about her whole life. She reiterated her commitment to speaking out Feb. 7 but announced she would limit her time on social media after receiving “a scary amount of hate/threats” for her comments.
Then came the team free skate performance. And nine days later, her disappointing short program.
‘I was devastated because I lost the happiness and the enjoyment that I wanted to have out there on the ice, to say, ‘I fought for everything, I did everything I could,’” she said Wednesday. ‘That’s what I truly wanted, and that’s what I missed out on.’
As a little girl, Glenn dreamed of twirling around the ice on one leg, the other in the air as she looked up and saw five rings overhead. ‘I’m at the Olympics,” she’d think to herself.
She’s been chasing that dream since she first started skating at 5 years old. A dream she feared slipped through her fingers. A dream realized Thursday night during her final skate of these Games.
Reach USA TODAY Network sports reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.