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<\/p>\nMILAN \u2014 For the second time in as many skates at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, Amber Glenn couldn\u2019t stop the tears. This time, the 26-year-old didn\u2019t even try to hide it.<\/p>\n
As the final few notes of Madonna\u2019s \u201cLike A Prayer\u201d played, Glenn sank to her knees and clasped her hands to her chest, her eyes watery, her breath labored. She skated off to an ovation from a sympathetic crowd, then held her coach, Damon Allen, in a tight embrace and let the dam burst.<\/p>\n
Glenn entered Tuesday\u2019s short program as a medal hopeful, as the highest-rated U.S. figure skater in the world. In a few agonizing seconds, it all unraveled.<\/p>\n
Glenn bailed on a triple loop required in her program. As a result, she got zero points for an invalid element, giving her an overall score of 67.39, a number so low she buried her head in her hands when it flashed on the big screen.<\/p>\n
Glenn\u2019s Olympic medal dreams in 2026 and, likely forever, are over. The oldest American woman to compete in the women\u2019s singles event in nearly a century now sits in a distant 13th place ahead of the 4-minute free skate on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
There are so many questions.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
Was everything OK? Glenn was fussing with her skates multiple times while she was warming up on the ice.<\/p>\n
Why didn\u2019t she even attempt the triple loop, knowing what it would cost her?<\/p>\n
And no answers, at least for now.<\/p>\n
Glenn moved through the mixed zone interview area briskly, eyes red-rimmed, skates still on.<\/p>\n
For the second time in five days, an American figure skater with serious medal hopes could not meet expectations. It wasn\u2019t a small jump or one fall. It was an unexpected disaster. Was it physical, mental or both?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Glenn is consoled after her short program on Tuesday in Milan. (Joosep Martinson \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Perhaps only Ilia Malinin, who was in attendance on Tuesday night, would know.<\/p>\n
It was Malinin who was heavily favored to win men\u2019s individual gold before finishing eighth in a self-inflicted, fall-filled performance. He later told reporters, \u201cI just felt like all the traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head and there\u2019s just like so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there and I just did not handle them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glenn is no stranger to the brutal nature of figure skating. She was a phenomenal talent as a junior skater, picking up Grand Prix medals in 2013 and 2014 as a teenager. But even as she was winning, Glenn battled depression, anxiety and an eating disorder and stepped away from the sport the following year.<\/p>\n
She returned in 2016 and by 2019 was medaling on the international stage again. She\u2019s the reigning three-time U.S. champion, the first woman to accomplish that feat since Michelle Kwan.<\/p>\n
Glenn, who came out as bisexual and pansexual in 2019, has been a vocal advocate of the LGBTQ+ community and mental health wellness, even when it hasn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n
Before she took the ice in Milan, Glenn said the LGBTQ+ community was going through a \u201ctough time\u201d during Donald Trump\u2019s presidency in response to a question from a reporter. She said she received death threats and acknowledged that the social media blowback had dimmed some of the shine around her first Olympic experience.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Glenn bailed on a triple loop required in her program. As a result, she got zero points for an invalid element. (Joosep Martinson \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t skate her best in the team event last week, posting a 138.62 score, later lamenting that she put too much pressure on Malinin to win it for the Americans, which he did. To put her performance in perspective, Glenn skated to a 150.50 at the U.S. Championships earlier this year.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Glenn was the second-to-last skater to take the ice. She landed her first and most difficult element, the triple axel. She is the only woman who even attempts it and nailing it seems to often dictate how the rest of her skate will go.<\/p>\n
Glenn followed the axel with a triple flip and triple toe loop. When she missed the triple loop, it was imperceptible to casual viewers. But Glenn knew. Years of work gone in a single instant.<\/p>\n
As she slunk off the ice, we\u2019re left to wonder what happened, what might have been and what she may be thinking.<\/p>\n
For now, Malinin\u2019s words will have to suffice.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople think we\u2019re superhuman,\u201d Malinin said before the Milan Games began. \u201cBut we\u2019re not, we\u2019re just human.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 For the second time in as many skates at the Milano Ice Skating Arena, Amber Glenn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-461612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116089616983913872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}