Amber Glenn, 26, Faced Concussions, Mental Health Crisis and Coming Out, Then Started Winning Golds: ‘I Never Gave Up’

need to know

• Figure skater Amber Glenn hopes to qualify for first Olympic Games in Milan in February

• Glenn has been skating since age 5 and became the U.S. Junior Girls Champion at 14, but retired from the sport due to a mental health crisis

• She returned after undergoing treatment and has been winning gold medals since 2023

Amber Glenn had just come off the ice, still taking off her gear and starting to reflect on the past few weeks. The 26-year-old had recently recovered from the flu and was back from the usual non-stop travel that top figure skaters do before the Olympics: photo shoots and commercials between competitions; interviews scheduled while she was still on her skates.

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She told PEOPLE she was talkative and candid on the recent afternoon, even though she was feeling a little “messy.” “I’m looking forward to the journey. It’s a long and hard road.”

As the 2025 women’s national champion, Glenn hopes all her hard work will help her qualify for January’s first Winter Olympics in Italy next month. She may be the only American female singles skater over 25, the oldest at 98 years, and the only American woman to land so many of the famously tricky triple axes that are her trademark.

“No matter what she does,” said father Richard, 57, “she succeeds.”

Although Glenn grew up in Plano, Texas, he never liked hot weather. At the age of five, she found immediate respite when her mom, Katherine, took her to an ice rink at a local mall. She insists she didn’t stand out on the ice, not at first, but quickly started setting goals.

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“Looking back, one thing I can say is that I wasn’t always the most graceful, talented or amazing skater, but I was determined,” she said.

But Katherine, 49, told PEOPLE that her daughter reached a milestone during her first year on the ice.

“She did her first solo axel jump when she was 6 years old,” she said. “This is a big deal.”

Her father, a police officer, worked part-time to help pay for the sport, while her mother worked at her rink and babysat for her coach to get discounted lessons. “We had to find ways to help fund her movement until she started getting funding,” Catherine said.

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When Glenn was 14, she became the U.S. Junior Girls Champion.

Then her path to victory went off the rails. The next year, she faced a mental health crisis and a friend raised concerns with her parents. She entered a facility where she was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. (She later learned she also had ADHD.)

It was a dark time, she says, until she found some light from within her inner circle: “I thought life was over. Eventually, there was a spark from the support around me and asking for help that kept me going.”

In 2019, Glenn came out about his pansexuality, a condition in which someone is attracted to people of different genders, during an interview with a local magazine where he casually discussed his sexuality.

“It was supposed to be a low-key little step, and then it was like, ‘Oh, okay. OK. I guess we’re doing this,'” she said, noting that while her remarks “really took off,” she had been speaking out to family and friends for some time at the time.

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But she remains prepared for the backlash. “There are hateful people out there, and you never know if one of those hateful people is going to be a judge,” she said.

But the overwhelmingly positive response felt like freedom, and she realized she couldn’t control what others thought: “Once I got over that, it felt like a weight had been lifted off me.”

“I can really be myself without any kind of judgment or preconceived notions of what I need to be,” she added. “I feel like the expectation of being a pretty princess, you know, cookie cutter, is kind of taken back by stepping out of the norm and embracing who I am and saying, I’m going to be myself regardless of your opinion.”

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Despite other setbacks, she began winning gold medals in 2023. Before testing positive for COVID-19, she competed on Team USA for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The next year, she suffered a second severe concussion. She fractured her orbital bones in both concussions, which she said resulted in brain damage.

She has been leaning on her parents, sister Brooke and coach Damon Allen, who helped her through a recent anxiety attack that was so severe she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “He was really good at bringing me back to reality,” she said, while Catherine called Alan an “amazing person.” With Allen’s help, she’s returning to a “more passionate, performative” style.

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In her free time, Glenn can be found relaxing with her dog Uki, playing Magic: The Gathering, or watching anime. One of her favorites, the Death Note series, inspired her makeup for the competition (which she also showed off to her legions of fans on social media).

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Although she’s still finding balance in the highs and lows, she’s not giving up. “My story is about resilience and living a life that, while not perfect, is who I am.”

Read the original article on People