Heading into Skate America, Amber Glenn is Peaking at the Right Time

This time last year, Amber Glenn was mired in uncertainty.
 
After a serious accident during cryotherapy left her with a fractured orbital bone and a severe concussion -- and just a month and a half after she got her triple Axel, no less -- Glenn was unsure if she'd ever truly regain her form.
 
She competed at the 2020 Guaranteed Rate Skate America while she still wasn't 100%, placing fifth, and then took the time until the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships to heal.
 
And, well, the rest is history.
 
"Having that happen and having that setback was devastating. It really disheartened me," Glenn said. "And coming back from that, it really showed me that I'm capable of coming back from just about anything."
 
Glenn did attempt the triple Axel at the U.S. Championships, though it was downgraded, but she didn't even need it to earn the silver medal. The 2014 U.S. junior champion, Glenn has been competing at the senior level since 2014-15 and had previously finished 13th, eighth (twice), seventh and fifth at the U.S. Championships.
 
"It was incredible," Glenn said of finally getting on the U.S. podium. "For me, it's always been almost. 'Oh, if you had done this, you could've been,' or, 'You were the champion of the practices, you just let it get to you.' All that kind of stuff. It felt nice to have all the hard work and all of the pushing over the years finally pay off in a placement, not just in practice."
 
It was a career moment for Glenn and placed her firmly in the upper echelon of U.S. ladies figure skating.
 
"Honestly, it didn't even really hit me until months later," Glenn said. "What I did was just what I do in practice every day. It wasn't like I went out there and had some miracle skate that I had never done before. So having that, I know, 'Oh, well, if I just go and do that again, I'll be able to be at the top again.' There's not that big, scary mountain in front of me that I feel like I'm at the base to climb again. I feel like I know what I need to do, and I've done it before, and I can do it again."
 
As an alternate on the World Championship team, Glenn returned home from the U.S. Championships and continued training hard in case she was needed. After some downtime, she came back hard in the summer, almost peaking too early as she was running clean programs with the triple Axel in June or July.
 
The intense training led to some overuse injuries, including multiple stress reactions in her foot and an ankle cyst that needed to be removed, forcing her to withdraw from the free skate of the Cranberry Cup in August and take three weeks off the ice to heal.
 
Now, with a 10th-place finish at the Finlandia Trophy under her belt, Glenn is heading into the first Grand Prix season she's ever been able to prepare for.
 
"The season before last was the first time I had two Grand Prixes, and one was the competition to get the TBD spot for Skate America, and the other was because someone else withdrew last-minute," Glenn said. "So this is my first year going into a season with two set Grand Prixes, having set competitions. I've never had that before. So that's been really nice because I can actually plan, and schedule things, and not be unpacking and packing and freaking out all the time. I actually have a plan, when to let myself heal and rest and when to push hard. Knowing when to peak is a big thing for me."
 
This season, Glenn will once again be competing in front of a home crowd at the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America, held in Las Vegas on Oct. 22-24.
 
She will also compete at NHK Trophy in Tokyo in November.
 
"Now I'm like, 'Oh, I feel like one of the big kids,'" Glenn said with a laugh. "It's given me a lot of confidence knowing, going into this season, I'm one of the top that have those set Grand Prix assignments, going into it knowing I have some of the highest difficulty of the skaters that are going to be there."
 
Indeed, Glenn is one of a handful of women in the world competing a triple Axel. She trained quads this summer and was getting close before her body decided enough was enough, but is loath to give up on that challenge.
 
"That's one of my goals in skating, is before I retire, I want to land a quad," she said. "I think that'd be so sick. Younger me would never have thought that, and it's just really cool to go past that dream of what I thought I'd be able to do."
 
At 22 years old, Glenn is not looking to retire after this Olympic season.
 
"I don't feel like I'm done, or even close to that," Glenn said. "It really all depends on my body. Mentally I feel like I could keep going, for sure. I still have that passion and love for it, which not a lot of people at the higher level will have. They'll kind of just do it, get it done, move on. I really do enjoy the day-to-day. I enjoy competing. I enjoy accomplishing new things. And after getting a new jump last season, I want more."
 
Like any other skater, Glenn would love to be on the U.S. Olympic Team come February. But she says she's not letting her goal control her and is focused on maintaining her consistency this season.
 
If she does that, everything else will fall into place.
 
"At the end of the day, I'm not the one in charge of selecting who's going to be on the team," Glenn said. "All I can do is go out and try and skate my best at every event this season, and then the choice is up to them. If that's not enough, that sucks. But I know if I go and I skate the way I do in practice, and I skate the way I want to, that I will be on that team."

Fans can tune into the action at 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America on NBCSN, NBC and Peacock Premium. Check out the Virtual Fan Experience for more details