MILAN — Redemption is possible, at least on the rink. After a mistake in the short program cost her her best chance at a medal, Amber Glenn returned to the Olympic ice Thursday night and showed a more composed free skate. The Assago Ice Rink audience welcomed her onto the ice with applause and gave her a standing ovation at the end of her program.
Glenn started the night’s free skate in 13th place with a score of 147.52, good enough for a conditional first-place finish with 12 skaters remaining. She showed control, confidence and even gratitude as she skated down the ice to a medley of Audiomachine’s “I Will Find You” and CLANN’s “The Return,” pumping her fists and touching her heart with gratitude.
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“It was close,” she thought to herself, knowing that a slight misstep on her final leaping pass was holding her back from a near-perfect game.
She may leave Milan with just one medal, the team gold she won last week, but she also leaves Milan with her head held high and her self-esteem restored.
Glenn and her Team USA teammates Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito arrived in Milan two weeks ago and have soared in popularity across the country. They call themselves the “Blade Angels” and are a perfect trio – the sincere Glenn, the eccentric Liu, and the low-key Levito. They showed so much talent, so much promise—all three were national champions—that talk of a podium sweep even spread. At least one of them will almost certainly break U.S. women’s figure skating’s medal drought that dates back to 2006.
For Glenn, the first cracks started to show in the team competition. With Glenn handling the free skate — and Liu handling the women’s short program — Glenn was uncharacteristically hesitant and ended her session in third place.
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“If a normal person was watching, they’d probably say, ‘Oh, that’s OK. It’s just a few little things (that went wrong), but there are many, many issues that haven’t been addressed as skaters as we know them,” Glenn said afterward. “I didn’t feel or perform the way I wanted to. My body didn’t feel good. My legs felt heavy, I was tired, I just didn’t feel my best, but I practiced unbelievably here.”
The U.S. still won its second consecutive Olympic team gold medal, but Glenn’s expression betrayed her pain and fear that she would cost the U.S. a gold medal before the final results were known.
“I think I had some fatigue and I needed to really deal with that in my individual events,” Glenn said at the time. “But I’m really proud of the mental strength I’ve built up over the years to be able to overcome some mistakes in the beginning and really fight in the second half.”
Little did she know that worse things were to come. Glenn and her fellow Blade Angels had more than a week between the team and individual events, a long time to maintain Olympic-level intensity.
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When Glenn finally did her short program, she started with a triple axel, a jump so difficult that only one other skater in the women’s competition has completed it this year. After another successful event, she prepared for the triple hoop, a relatively routine jump that nearly every Olympian performed on Tuesday’s show. But a slight loss of balance meant she only did two laps instead of three, giving her a zero point for the entire event.
That loss sent her rankings plummeting. She finished the event in 13th place, more than 11 points behind Japanese leader Ami Nakai. Visibly frustrated, she gave only the briefest of interviews before leaving the stage.
Glenn returned to the ice Thursday night with a chance to rewrite her narrative. But no matter how her final game goes, she will leave Milan as a gold medalist.