And the women who competed for Team USA on the sport’s grandest stage? Well, they were something else entirely. An “untouchable” group. Glenn couldn’t see herself ever being part of it.
Glenn instead had more attainable goals: She wanted the chance to skate in a televised competition someday. And when she achieved that at age 14 while competing at the U.S. junior national championships, those around her in the skating community began to believe she was capable of a lot more.
But while others could see how special Glenn was, it would take another seven years — and a lengthy mental health break from the sport — for her to believe what she had thought was impossible.
While there have been challenges along the way — including an unsuccessful bid for the 2022 team — Glenn is ready for her Olympic moment, and a chance to win the first Olympic medal for the American women since 2006.
“It would mean everything,” Glenn told ESPN. “I had a bit of a shot at it in ’22, but I just was not prepared. I didn’t have the accomplishments under my belt and I didn’t have the confidence.
GLENN STARTED IN the sport alongside her sister Brooke and their three cousins, taking a skating lesson at Stonebriar Centre in Frisco in an effort to get the girls out of the oppressive Texas heat. She loved it right away — and her talent was quickly evident.
By 14, Glenn had emerged as one of the country’s brightest new talents, winning the 2014 junior national championships with a free skate score higher than all but three of the senior women competitors.
Suddenly, she was the one to watch, and with that, came all of the expectations so often pinned on prodigious young skaters. Glenn said she wasn’t ready for it.
“The external and internal pressure was just a lot, and I had already been struggling with my mental health,” Glenn said. “I was just latching onto any way to feel in control of myself and my own environments, and it just manifested in disordered eating and depressive episodes, and it was just a lot. And it got to a point to where it could not be sustained as an athlete or even just as a human.”
While she continued to train and compete, she knew she was not OK. Glenn didn’t even need to say anything. A close friend noticed how she was struggling and reached out to Glenn’s parents out of concern. Glenn entered an inpatient mental health facility for six days.
She doesn’t recall much from her time at the facility, but she does remember that she never saw the sun.
Glenn said she knew, no matter what happened with skating, she was going to make some changes when she left. The next several months were a blur. She continued intensive outpatient therapy and focused on learning to function again. She didn’t skate.
In her 10-year career she had never been away from the ice for more than two or three weeks. Her love for the sport never wavered, and the break felt like an eternity. But she kept focused on getting healthy.
Glenn returned to training in 2016, and finished in eighth place at the U.S. championships at the end of that season. She was solidly “middle of the pack,” in her mind, for the next several years.
But things began to change in 2019. American ice dancer Karina Manta had come out publicly as bisexual the year before, and the announcement had a huge impact on Glenn. She decided to publicly share that she was bisexual and pansexual and did an interview with the Dallas Voice, a local magazine. She was unsure how many people would see it — but was floored by the immediate and overwhelming support she received.
“I did not expect it to blow up in the way that it did,” she said. “But I’m grateful because they got my message out there. I was able to represent a lot of people that are in skating, especially queer women.”
And Glenn realized if that was the impact she was making as someone with “midrange” results, her reach could be so much further if she could make it to the top level of the sport. The appeal of having a larger platform was the motivation she didn’t know she needed.
“I couldn’t skate but I could get stronger,” Glenn said. “And I thought, if I’m going to keep going, I want to give it my all and try and really do what I can with the limited resources that I had there in Texas. I was constantly doing the math to try and get a triple axel because I was thinking, ‘Well, if I’m going to do this, might as well try and accomplish something new.'”
Like the double axel she had conquered all those years earlier, the triple axel was another make-or-break moment. It ultimately changed everything.
At the 2021 U.S. championships, Glenn attempted the triple axel but was unable to land it. Still, she had what was then one of the best competitions of her senior career, finishing as the runner-up. She was left off the U.S. team for worlds — and instead named first alternate — but suddenly she was a legitimate Olympic hopeful for the 2022 Beijing Games.
And perhaps most importantly, it was the first time Glenn truly believed she could one day be an Olympian. “I thought, ‘Oh dang, if I do really well, I really might have a shot at it,” Glenn remembered thinking.
But after a disappointing 14th-place finish in the short program at the 2022 U.S. championships, Glenn tested positive for COVID-19. She was forced to withdraw from competition and was not named to the Olympic team.
While it was devastating, it made Glenn realize how close she was — and what she would need to do to make the 2026 Olympic team.
“It gave me a taste of what could happen if I really, really committed myself to this,” Glenn said. “I then went on a completely different path.”
For Hill, who had worked previously with Glenn at various gala performances at competitions, the decision was easy.
She also added neurotherapy during the summer of 2024, at the suggestion of her sports psychologist, Dr. Caroline Silby. It helped quell her anxiety on the ice and aided with symptoms of ADHD, which she had been diagnosed with as a teenager.
The practice connects sensors to Glenn’s head and monitors her brain activity while she does various breathing and focus exercises, using sounds to help redirect her if abnormalities are detected. Allen said one such exercise involved Glenn, typically sitting rinkside, mentally driving a car down a road in a straight line. He called neurotherapy “the game changer” for Glenn.
“She’s always been well-trained and capable of great programs, but before she would make a mistake [in competition] and then get into this high-anxiety setting and then not be able to get off of the hamster wheel [the rest of the performance],” Allen said. “But this has helped her focus. Now if she makes a mistake, she knows it’s not the end of the world. She’s able to just get right back in it and not let it ruin the rest of the program.”
She successfully landed a triple axel for the first time in competition at Skate America in 2023 — becoming just the sixth American woman to do so — and won another Grand Prix medal soon after. In January of 2024, she won the national title, becoming the first openly queer woman to win. She displayed the Progress Pride flag on the ice during her victory laps — and many in the crowd simultaneously displayed their own. Since then, the flag is often seen at events when Glenn competes.
With a short program set to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” this season, Glenn is known for her artistry and high-performance quality, as well as her technical abilities. While Liu has also successfully landed a triple axel in competition, it remains rare on the women’s side. Glenn was the only woman to successfully perform the skill (in her free skate) at the 2025 world championships.
For Hill, that elusive combination sets Glenn apart from not just her peers, but those who have come before her as well.
“Amber [is] pushing the figure skating sport, specifically the female discipline of figure skating, forward with her commitment to the triple axel and her commitment to the choreography and keeping the performance strong, and still doing the big split jumps and all of these interesting maneuvers,” Hill said. “I think there’s something special added there. So not to take away from what everyone else has done, but with Amber, she’s pushing us all forward.”
While the stakes will be high for Glenn as she first takes the ice on Wednesday night, and a third straight national title is certainly among her goals, the competition may also be a celebration. The team selection criteria is based on a skater’s body of work from the past two seasons, and not just the result this week, so it’s hard to envision a scenario in which Glenn doesn’t make the team.
Liu, the defending world and Grand Prix Final champion, has positioned herself as the American front-runner, but there are three Olympic berths up for grabs in St. Louis, and Liu and Glenn are both legitimate medal hopes to end the 20-year Olympic drought.
But Glenn doesn’t want to get ahead of herself. Instead, she’s trying to appreciate every moment along her improbable journey to the top.
“I don’t need to be anything more than what I am and what I’m capable of, and that is enough,” Glenn said. “I just want to reach my own potential and that’s all. I don’t need to reach anyone else’s expectations for me, but my own.”
She made history yet again during the 2024-25 season as she won the first Grand Prix title of her career — recording the highest-ever score for an American woman in the short program and becoming the oldest American to claim her first Grand Prix gold. Then last January, she won her second consecutive U.S. championship, narrowly defeating 2022 Olympian Alysa Liu for the title. While she finished fifth at the world championships in March after a fall on her triple axel in the short program, Glenn’s season put her Olympic dreams squarely in her grasp.
GORGEOUS triple axel from Amber Glenn in her free skate! 🤌📺 NBC & Peacock | #PrevagenUSChamps pic.twitter.com/ePE6zFoClA
THE JOURNEY HAS been transformative — on and off the ice — for Glenn.