How a figure skater survived an eating disorder, inpatient treatment, two concussions, and years of being told she was too much to become a three-time U.S. champion and Olympic gold medalist.
Key takeaways
- Amber Glenn, from Plano, Texas, was admitted for inpatient mental health treatment in 2015, the year she turned 16, and spent eight months off the ice.
- She won U.S. titles in 2024, 2025 and 2026, the first woman to win three in a row since Michelle Kwan.
- At the 2026 Olympics she won team gold with the U.S. and climbed from 13th to fifth in women's singles.
- At 26 she was the oldest American woman to qualify for an Olympic singles team since 1928.
Amber Glenn was told to be quieter, smaller, more graceful. For most of her life, that's what people wanted from her, and that isn't what she gave them. At 26, the three-time U.S. women's champion arrived at the 2026 Olympics in Milan as the oldest American woman to qualify for an Olympic singles team since 1928. She had survived an eating disorder, inpatient mental health treatment and two concussions, and spent years hearing that her personality was too much.
On Olympic ice she did exactly what she wanted: she went bigger. She won team gold with her teammates, then recovered from a costly short program to finish fifth in the individual event. She didn't make the singles podium, but she made a statement to everyone who had ever told her to shrink. This is her story, and it matters for more reasons than you might think.
Who is Amber Glenn?
You may not follow figure skating closely, but Amber Glenn matters for reasons that go well beyond triple Axels and dramatic music choices (though, yes, her "Like a Prayer" short program is iconic). Born October 28, 1999, she grew up in Plano, Texas, and trains in Colorado Springs with coaches Damon Allen and Tammy Gambill. She is also the first openly LGBTQ woman named to a U.S. Olympic women's singles team.
She has been unusually open about the hard parts, talking publicly about depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, ADHD and the weight of two concussions. What makes her story compelling is that she didn't get here through some magical recovery moment. She got here through consistent, unglamorous work, through therapy, and through choosing herself repeatedly, even when it was hard.
For adult skaters, this matters because many of you are coming to the sport with similar stories. You're managing mental health challenges, recovering from past trauma or present anxiety, or working through body image issues, or all of the above. Amber Glenn's career proves that these things don't disqualify you from excellence. They might just be part of your path to it.
Told to tone it down
Glenn's big, expressive personality showed up early, and so did the pushback. When she was about 10, she was told to tone it down because it wasn't graceful. Her mother, Cathlene, has recalled judges suggesting ways for her to fit the "ice princess" mold: cut carbs, be more graceful and, in one judge's words, "don't do that big smile anymore." For a kid whose joy was the whole point, that created real friction.
It also created a conflict many young athletes face: the distance between who you are and who you think you need to be in order to succeed. Glenn eventually rejected the cookie-cutter image, and she credits being herself with making her a better skater. Many adult skaters come to the sport precisely because they never fit the elite youth mold. Skating on your own terms, at your own pace, isn't a limitation; it's a freedom many competitive skaters never had.
Mental health, an eating disorder and recovery
In 2015, the year she turned 16, struggles with depression, an eating disorder and her sexuality led to Glenn being admitted for inpatient treatment. She was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder, and she spent eight months away from the ice. These weren't character flaws. They were illnesses, and treating them meant stepping away from the sport entirely.
She returned to training in February 2016, and the work didn't stop there. A doctor diagnosed her with ADHD in 2019, and much of her training with Allen and Gambill has gone into keeping it from creeping into her long programs. Her team also studied how her heart rate spikes in competition, after a big triple Axel for example, and how to bring it back down. Her motto through all of it is "Breathe and believe."
Here's what many people don't understand about eating disorder recovery: it doesn't look like "getting better" on a linear scale. It looks like learning to tolerate uncertainty and having uncomfortable feelings without punishing your body for them. It looks like building new relationships with food, exercise and self-worth. If skating is part of how you look after your own head, our piece on skating for mental health is worth a read.
In December 2019, Glenn came out publicly as pansexual. She has since said that embracing her sexuality "unapologetically" has helped her fans, and that being out has made her a better athlete. In a sport that has long pressured skaters to conform, that visibility has mattered to a lot of people.
A positive test and two concussions
The physical setbacks came in clusters. In summer 2020 she passed out in a cryotherapy tank, fell through the door and hit her head on a shoe cubby, leaving her with a severe concussion. In summer 2023 a practice collision with another skater knocked her out, with a black eye and a broken orbital bone. She has described the injuries as severing her "brain-body connection," and she worked her way back through neurological therapy recommended by her sports psychologist.
In between came the setback that hurt most. At the 2022 U.S. Championships, which decided the Beijing Olympic team, she tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew after the short program, and she was named an Olympic alternate instead. "That dream that I had of making the team just slipped through my fingers," she told NBC 5 in Dallas-Fort Worth. It would be four more years before she got another shot.
Three straight U.S. titles
In spring 2022 Glenn moved to Colorado Springs to train with Allen and Gambill, and the results followed. At 2023 Skate America she landed her first clean triple Axel in competition, on her 14th try since January 2021, becoming the sixth U.S. woman to do it. Our guide to every figure skating jump explains what makes the Axel different. In January 2024 she won her first U.S. title, the first openly LGBTQ woman to do so.
The 2024-25 season was her breakout. At the Grand Prix de France her short program scored 78.14, the highest ever by a U.S. woman in international competition, breaking Gracie Gold's 76.43 from 2016, and she went on to her first Grand Prix gold. In December she won the Grand Prix Final in Grenoble, the first U.S. woman to take that title in 14 years, and in January 2025 she won a second national title.
In January 2026 in St. Louis she won a third straight title, the first woman to do that since Michelle Kwan won eight in a row from 1998 to 2005. Her free skate (150.50) and total (233.55) were personal bests, and she beat Alysa Liu to do it. She did all of this not by shrinking herself or suppressing her personality, but by finally, fully embracing it.
The 2026 Olympics: team gold at 26
At 26, Glenn was the oldest American woman to qualify for an Olympic singles team since 1928, in a discipline where elite women often peak in their late teens. She went to Milan as one of the "Blade Angels," the nickname she, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito voted on for themselves at Liu's suggestion. Their friendship, a refreshing change from past Olympic rivalries, became one of the stories of the Games.
Her first job was the team event. On February 8 she finished third in the women's free skate with 138.62, earning eight points, and the U.S. won gold by a single point over Japan. Our guide to every Olympic figure skating event explains how the team event works, and our 2026 Olympics roundup has every result.
Her free skate music, "I Will Find You" by Audiomachine and "The Return" by CLANN, made headlines of its own. After the team event, CLANN's Seb McKinnon said on social media that he was surprised his song had been used, and the two smoothed out the copyright question within days. Our explainer on the music rules of figure skating covers how program music gets cleared.
Then came the individual event, and her short program to Madonna's "Like a Prayer." It's big, emotional and unapologetically theatrical, exactly the opposite of what she was told to be as a young skater, and it's perfect. Just before she skated, Madonna sent her a video message saying she looked "strong and brave" and telling her to "go get that gold." Glenn was visibly stunned: "I'm in complete shock."
She opened with a clean triple Axel, a jump only one other woman in the field performed, but late in the program her planned triple loop came out as a double. Under the judging system that made it an invalid element worth zero points, and she sat 13th with 67.39. For a contender, it was a brutal way to start.
Two days later she delivered a nearly flawless free skate, landing the triple Axel again, for a season-best 147.52, the third-best free skate of the night. She held the top spot until the final handful of skaters and finished fifth with 214.91. Alysa Liu won gold, ahead of Kaori Sakamoto, Ami Nakai and Mone Chiba. For someone who had been written off years earlier, fifth at the Olympics is a massive achievement.
Why her story matters to adult skaters
If you're an adult skater reading this, you might be wondering what an Olympian's story has to do with you. You're not training for the Olympics or skating for a living. You're just someone who loves to skate. Here's why it matters anyway.
First, it's permission to be yourself. Amber's journey is a reminder that authenticity and skill aren't mutually exclusive, and you don't have to shrink yourself to learn to skate. In fact, the opposite is often true. The adult skaters who make the most progress are usually the ones who bring their whole selves to the ice.
Second, recovery is possible. Many adult skaters come to the sport carrying their own histories of mental health challenges, eating disorder struggles or physical trauma. Amber Glenn's story shows that these things don't have to define your future. They might be part of your story, but they don't have to be the ending.
Third, age is not the limit the sport sometimes treats it as. Figure skating culture often treats age as a ticking clock, and Glenn showed up to her first Olympics at 26 and proved that belief wrong. As an adult skater you bring perspective, experience and self-knowledge that younger skaters don't have, and that's an advantage. Deanna Stellato-Dudek, who skated the same Games at 42, makes the point even louder.
Finally, the journey matters more than the destination. Glenn didn't win individual gold; she won team gold and finished fifth in singles. By elite standards that might not count as a win, but by human standards it's everything, because she showed up, competed and was fully herself. That's a victory you can have every time you step on the ice.
If her story has you thinking about your own, we'd love to hear it, so share your skating story with us. Whether you're starting from zero or returning after years away, there are skaters exactly where you are. And if you're ready to begin, our guide to starting figure skating as an adult walks you through your first steps.
Sources
This story draws on contemporary reporting and official results. Quotes are attributed to the outlet that first published them.
- U.S. Figure Skating, Glenn becomes first woman to win three consecutive U.S. titles since Michelle Kwan (January 2026).
- U.S. Figure Skating, Glenn wins short program in record fashion at Grand Prix de France (November 2024).
- NBC Sports, report on Glenn's first clean triple Axel at 2023 Skate America (October 2023).
- NPR, U.S. women's figure skaters could've been rivals. Instead, they're the "Blade Angels" (February 2026).
- NBC News, Amber Glenn finishes just off the podium after a high-scoring free skate (February 2026).
- Golden Skate, feature on Glenn's "Breathe and believe" motto.
- Reporting by the Associated Press, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, People, the Denver Gazette, CP24 and NBC Olympics.
