MILAN — Redemption is possible, at least on the rink. After a single missed element in the short program doomed her best chance at a medal, Amber Glenn returned to the Olympic ice Thursday night and delivered a much more composed free skate. The audience at Assago Ice Skating Arena heralded her arrival on the ice with applause, and congratulated her on the conclusion of her program with a standing ovation.
Starting the night in 13th place, Glenn finished her free skate with a score of 147.52, good enough for a conditional first place with 12 skaters left to go. She skated to a medley of “I Will Find You” by Audiomachine and “The Return” by CLANN, and appeared in control, confident and even grateful, pumping her fists and gratefully touching her heart as she skated off the ice.
She may leave Milan with only one medal, the team gold she earned last week, but she also leaves with her head held high and her self-esteem reclaimed.
Glenn and her Team USA teammates Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito arrived in Milan two weeks ago riding a surge of nationwide popularity. The “Blade Angels,” as they dubbed themselves, were a perfect trio — the heartfelt Glenn, the quirky Liu, the understated Levito. They’d shown so much talent, so much promise — all three are national champions — that talk of a podium sweep even took flight. At the very least, one of them would almost surely break the American medal drought that’s existed in women’s figure skating since 2006.
For Glenn, the first cracks started to show in the team event. Tasked with handling the free skate element — Liu had handled the women’s short program — Glenn was uncharacteristically tentative, ending her routine in third place.
"If an average person were to watch, they'd probably be like, 'Oh, it's fine. Just a few little things (went wrong), but as skating people we know, there were many, many, many points left out on the table,” Glenn said afterward. “I did not feel or perform the way I wanted to. I physically didn't feel great. My legs were feeling heavy, I was tired, I just didn't feel my best, and I've been practicing here incredibly.”
The United States still claimed the team gold for a second straight Olympics, but Glenn’s face betrayed her anguish and fear that she’d cost Team USA a gold right up until the final results were announced.
“I think I had some fatigue and I need to really manage that going into the individual event,” Glenn said at the time. “But I'm really proud of the mental strength that I've built over the years to be able to get through some mistakes in the beginning and really fighting in the second half.”
She had no idea that much worse was yet to come. Glenn and her fellow Blade Angels had more than a week between the team event and their individual events, a long time to maintain Olympic-level intensity.
When Glenn finally took the ice for her short program, she began with a triple axel, a jump so difficult only one other skater in this year’s women’s event landed it. After another successful element, she prepared to do a triple loop, a relatively routine jump; virtually every Olympian on Tuesday’s program completed one. But a slight loss of balance meant she only did two loops instead of three, giving her zero points for the entire element.
That loss sent her plummeting down the standings; she finished the program in 13th place, more than 11 points behind leader Ami Nakai of Japan. She was visibly devastated, and left the arena after only the briefest of interviews.
Glenn returned to the ice on Thursday night with an opportunity to rewrite her narrative. But no matter how her final routine went, she would leave Milan as a gold medalist.