Amber Glenn, who is making her Olympic debut at the Milano Cortina Games, is fighting to preserve the joy of her experience.
A fierce advocate of mental health and LGBTQ rights, Glenn was only one of two skaters to land a triple axel in the women’s short program on Feb. 17. Normally that would be enough to put her within shouting distance of a medal. (The other skater to land one, Japan’s Ami Nakai, leads the women going into the final.) Skating to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” Glenn then performed her triple jump-triple jump combination.
But during her flying sit spin, she said after practice the following day, she “tapped down on my spin, which I never do.” That put her off balance. “My core wasn’t stable, and I was a little bit noodle-y,” she said. Entering her triple loop jump, she was forced to pop it and completed only two revolutions.
“I have always been known to wear my heart on my sleeve, which is what makes me relatable, but it also makes it hard for me to hide how I feel. And in that moment, it was soul crushing. Because I did the hard stuff and it was the easiest thing, my favorite jump, that just got away from me.”
In the short program, such a mistake is costly. Skaters in the women’s event are required to execute a set number of elements, or skills, and a triple jump is one of them. By performing only a double, Glenn received no points for that skill. “It’s gone. You can’t go back in time,” said Glenn, who ended up finishing 13th. “You can’t fix it. I didn’t get to skate off like I see in other sports, where you make a mistake and you’re done and you just kind of [go] off into the woods. I wish I could do that. But they expect you to smile, and they expect you to still perform, like you’re having the time of your life, when in reality your dreams were just smashed to pieces.”
Not allowing past mistakes to affect the rest of her…
