Already A Queer Icon, Amber Glenn Is Chasing Milan Olympic Dreams Next

Amber Glenn did not moreover really want to spell to Beijing. Sure, she had dreamed of it nan measurement each kid dreams of competing successful nan Olympics—on nan aforesaid level arsenic becoming President, aliases learning to fly. But nan highest realistic grant she envisioned for her fig skating profession arsenic a kid was performing connected television, which she’d done astatine 14. So erstwhile she came retired of obscurity astatine 21 to decorativeness 2nd astatine nan 2021 nationalist championships and successful a flash everyone astir her started talking astir her arsenic a Beijing hopeful, she didn’t rather cognize what to think. 

“Those were rather uncertain times owed to a definite microorganism going connected successful nan world,” she says. “So I was abruptly a taxable of, Oh, this could happen, and I was really fresh. I hadn’t proven myself internationally aliases really successful nan country, isolated from for 1 time, truthful I didn't person nan expertise aliases acquisition that came pinch each nan hype and buzz of nan ’22 Games.”

Since nan Beijing Games successful 2022, Glenn says she has matured successful galore ways. / Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images

Her likeness was everywhere. Delta Airlines—which facilitated Glenn’s SI interview—named her 1 of its six “Delta squad ambassadors.” Team USA advertised her arsenic 1 of nan faces of Beijing. 

Then, midway done a disappointing capacity astatine nan 2022 U.S. championships, which besides served arsenic nan qualifying arena for nan U.S. Olympic team, Glenn tested affirmative for COVID-19 and withdrew. She was named an alternate. She was crushed. She feared she had gotten up of herself. She feared her profession mightiness extremity successful failure. 

So why, 4 years later, pinch Milan 2026 conscionable six months away, victor of nan past 2 nationalist titles and a slew of expansive prix events, has she agreed to put herself successful nan aforesaid situation—doing promotional activity for a squad she has not yet made?

“I deliberation I yet person nan belief successful myself,” she says now. “Now I’m capable to get excited pinch them. I’m not anxious. Well, of course, I'm anxious. But I’m not scared. I’m excited. And nan power is—I get to clasp it alternatively than fearfulness it.”

It took a batch for Glenn, now 25, to get to this point. The outpouring aft she didn’t make nan Olympic team, Glenn moved from Texas, wherever she’d lived each her life, to Colorado Springs, Colo., to train astatine a U.S. Olympic training site. She had travel retired arsenic pansexual successful 2019 and has battled an eating disorder, anxiety, slump and ADHD; arsenic she matured, she felt much capable to beryllium unfastened astir who she is. 

“I’m a batch more—I don’t want to usage nan connection stable, but a batch much contented pinch conscionable my wide life,” she says. “Like, I person a dog, I person a place, I cognize my neighbors, I person friends. I’m capable to equilibrium life and being a pro jock astatine nan aforesaid time. And I deliberation that’s nan biggest difference.” (Her Schipperke, Ukima, is “my beautiful daughter,” she says. “Every time I get to travel location to that smiling face. She does what I telephone ‘happy spins.’ She’s for illustration her mama: She spins astir erstwhile she gets happy.”)

Glenn wants to make it to nan Olympic stage, not conscionable for her fig skating profession but besides to person a larger level to stock her communicative and message. / Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images

Women’s fig skating is truthful often considered to beryllium a athletics of teenagers; Glenn sees herself arsenic portion of a procreation showing that adults tin thrive connected nan ice, too. She has reflected that she ne'er really had skating mentors arsenic a child, because everyone astir her was her ain age, truthful she has decided to beryllium that personification for nan younger skaters. 

In 2015, she assigned herself to counsel Isabeau Levito, past eight, astatine a camp, helping her find a Team USA overgarment that fresh and lending her a brace of earrings; erstwhile Levito mentioned her gratitude astatine a property convention later, Glenn burst into tears. “It’s much than conscionable medals,” Glenn says now. “It’s conscionable nan effect successful being a bully quality and a bully teammate that matters nan astir to me.”

After she did not make nan squad successful 2022, she decided to attraction connected that constituent of her career. The position displacement has helped her negociate unit connected nan ice, she says. A mediocre skate is little of a nonaccomplishment if her beingness and cognition thief animate people. 

Glenn opened up her play pinch a Nebelhorn Trophy triumph successful Germany successful September. This week, she will compete astatine Cup of China—the 2nd of six Grand Prix regular play events successful nan lead-up to Milan 2026—alongside different U.S. fig skating hopefuls Alysa Liu and Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

“This time, I consciousness for illustration it really is my goal,” she says of nan Olympics. “It’s my dream. It’s my dream to compete connected nan biggest shape successful nan world, and to beryllium capable to stock my connection of being an advocator for intelligence health, for nan queer community, and beryllium capable to speak astir nan things that I’m passionate about. And erstwhile you’re connected a large stage, group thin to perceive a spot more. And of people I want to spell location because of my sport—but it’s besides because I want to animate a young procreation of athletes.”

Maybe moreover immoderate who ne'er thought overmuch astir competing astatine nan Olympics.