Kristi Yamaguchi loves Blade Angels’ “unique look and style”
Brian Boitano asks fellow Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi what her favorite Blade Angels member is. Amber Glenn, Alisa Liu, and Isabeau Levit.
take sports seriously
Editor’s note: Follow live Olympic figure skating results and updates on the 2026 Winter Games.
MILAN — More than a decade ago, Amber Glenn was a rising star in the world of figure skating.
Greatness was expected of Glenn, a junior national champion who had just made his senior-level debut at the 2015 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Glenn was struggling on the ice. She was battling depression along with anxiety and an eating disorder. While everyone saw great potential, all the pressures were building up and becoming too much.
Glenn has reached his lowest point.
“I didn’t want to be on this earth anymore,” Glenn said.
Even though the situation was dire, Glenn called for help. She was admitted to a facility for treatment. It allowed her to take a step back from everything and connect with her family and friends. But most of all, she “felt like I wanted to have a future again.”
The future includes the 2026 Winter Olympics. Glenn has already won a gold medal as a member of Team USA and will compete in the women’s singles competition on Tuesday, February 17th. The event begins at 6:45pm ET at the Milan Ice Skating Arena.
Was the road to Milan-Cortina perfect? No, but it took immense strength for Glenn to push through. She no longer hides who she is and embraces her 10-year journey. Even better, she’s also an advocate for LGBTQ rights and mental health awareness.
Glenn has championed a new face for women’s figure skating in the U.S. and greater camaraderie and support among athletes, but it’s not the only championship she can win as she sets her sights on Olympic gold.
“Just to survive each day, just to wake up and live the next day, I had to completely undress,” Glenn said. “It took me 10 years to get to where I am now.”
We also had to change our approach on the ice.
First, she felt she was too sketchy and didn’t fit the traditional female skater mold. She thought he was too muscular, too big, and not as feminine as the other players on the field.
That scared her and she really tried to avoid it becoming a reality. But then she realized she could embrace it and let the world know that it’s okay to not look typical.
“If we want to get past that worry, someone has to do it,” she said. “Someone has to break the mold and break the stereotypes so that the next person coming out isn’t afraid of it.”
There were times when I felt confused during the performance. Glenn felt he was too passionate and didn’t focus on the technical aspects of the program.
The change in mentality has all come with the help of sports psychology, which Glenn actively incorporates as part of his training. Specifically, she uses neurofeedback, which teaches self-regulation of brain functions such as thinking and breathing techniques through auditory and visual stimulation, according to the National Library of Medicine. This allows her to control her heart rate and adrenaline, allowing her to maintain a steady level during stressful moments.
“It was particularly helpful in controlling the fight-or-flight state that occurs when adrenaline is high and nerves are high,” she said.
It all took years to complete, with victories interspersed with grueling performances, and in the end, she narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics, where she was selected as an alternate.
It was a big disappointment for Glenn, but that didn’t stop her as she had done so much work. Then the wins piled up.
Grand Prix event winner. The queen of US figure skating, the 2025 Grand Prix Final champion and three-time reigning national champion, officially earned her ticket to her first Winter Olympics with an impressive performance in January.
defense of amber glen
Glenn’s Olympic appearance made history. The 26-year-old jokes that she is “a bit of a dinosaur” because she is the oldest American Olympic women’s singles player since Beatrix Laurent in 1928.
However, there is another difference. Glenn is the first openly gay woman to be on the U.S. Olympic single figure skating team.
Having struggled with his identity for a long time, Glenn accepts who he is and is not afraid to show it to the world. You’ll notice that she frequently wears pins with LGBTQ+ flags on them. During celebrations, she finds a flag and holds it proudly, draping it over her shoulder. This is her Instagram profile picture.
And she always speaks up for her community.
“Being an advocate for the queer community and mental health is one of the reasons I continue to be active and to be a person with this platform,” Glenn said.
Ahead of the convention, she made a strong statement about the Trump administration’s approach to the LGBTQ+ community, saying it “affects not only the gay community, but many other communities,” and that she wanted to use her platform in Milan-Cortina to encourage people “to remain strong in these difficult times.”
“I know a lot of people say, you’re just an athlete, stick to your job, shut up about politics, but politics affects all of us,” Glenn said. “It’s something that affects our daily lives, so I’m not going to just sit there.”
Glenn said the backlash was “so disappointing,” but vowed to “never stop using my voice for what I truly believe in.”
Although she is only a few years older than fellow “Blade Angels” Alisa Liu and Isabeau Levitt, they respect Glen like an older sister and continue to admire everything she does.
“Amber, she has a lot of love, and I love it,” Liu said. “She just exudes it.”
Glenn, who already has a team gold medal under her belt, is now competing to become the women’s Olympic champion and had a great shot of reaching the podium and breaking the United States’ 20-year medalless drought in the event. This is a big moment filled with pressure, and Glenn isn’t trying to avoid the situation.
That moment will come, but it won’t break her. Yes, she still suffers from depression. And anxiety. And ADHD. It still affects her, but it no longer limits her.
“Of course there will be some stressful parts,” Glenn said. “But I’ve found a lot of ways to deal with it, and I’ve found a lot of ways to be able to embrace it as excitement and enthusiasm, rather than just stress and pressure, because it’s something I’ve been working on my whole life.”
Inviting the world to participate in your mental health journey requires extreme vulnerability. Glenn didn’t have to do that, but it was important to her nonetheless.
In a sport that demands perfection, Glenn wanted to show that you don’t have to be perfect to be good. It’s okay not to be OK, and it doesn’t have to define you.
“I’ve been very open about the ups and downs I’ve had in my career because I want people to know that it’s okay,” she said. “I’m grateful that you’re here and that I was able to make this dream come true after suffering for a while. I’m still working on my mental health, and that’s something that will be with you forever.”
“Even after my career as a skater is over, I know that I have learned a lot from them. I hope that even after my career is over, I can continue to help the next generation of figure skating.”
Remember, 10 years ago, none of this seemed possible to Glenn. It’s all thanks to Glenn’s continued evolution of accepting herself and everything that has brought her to this point, the good and the bad. When she steps on the Olympic stage, she can be Amber Glenn.
Even though she is scarred by battle, she is happy to show the beauty within.
“I had to work very hard for a very long time to grow slowly to get to where I am today,” she said. “I’m very proud of how slowly we’ve grown.”
