Amber Glenn Heads to Skate America with New Coaching Team and Renewed Love of the Sport

Consider this season the start of a new chapter for Amber Glenn.
 
She needed one, she admits, after the last one ended so catastrophically.
 
After a breakout performance at the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships where she earned the silver medal, Glenn was one of the leading U.S. women in the 2021-22 season and entered the 2022 U.S. Championships with a shot at making her first Olympic team.
 
She and the rest of the athletes were in a bubble to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but at one of her practices, someone who had lost their voice showed up.
 
When Glenn woke up the morning of the short program, she says she was feeling weird.
 
"I get on the ice for the competition, and I thought adrenaline would kick in and I would start to feel normal, but I feel like I'm watching myself from the stands," Glenn said. "It didn't even feel like me out there. And I can barely even remember how I felt when I was skating."
 
The program did not go well. Glenn finished 14th out of 16 skaters.
 
"It was absolutely devastating," Glenn said. "I was very lucky to have my sport psychologist be there for me immediately after, and then eventually my parents. But you know, it was quite devastating, and to see people around me and my training mates accomplishing that goal that we had both had, it was hard, because we were on the same training plan. We were doing the same things, preparing the same and to see such different results was hard."
 
She continued practicing for the free skate, figuring that all the pressure was off now, but decided to take a COVID test when she heard of athletes she'd been in close contact with withdrawing due to COVID.
 
Glenn tested positive.
 
"You don't think it would happen to you until it happens," she said. "I didn't leave my hotel room after that. And that was that. Everything had to be taken care of for me. I was alone in a hotel room, being withdrawn from Nationals. After I had a recording of a clean short program with a beautiful triple Axel just a couple days beforehand. Admittedly, things weren't the best leading into it because I was very nervous, but if I had just done what I could do in training, who knows what would've happened. I could've been on that team."
 
Glenn is incredibly grateful for all the support she received from her psychologist, parents, friends and significant other in the immediate aftermath, but it still took her quite some time to get back on her feet. While she had to stay in shape as an Olympic and World team alternate, she took few lessons and skated sporadically, contemplating whether or not she even wanted to continue competing.
 
Ultimately, she decided to stick with it.
 
"I'd never gotten to display and show the improvements that I had made over the last two and a half years in competition fully," she said. "I still wanted to land a triple Axel in competition. I still loved the sport, and I thought I had more to give. And I thought, 'Well, as long as I take care of my body, and that is okay, then I want to keep doing it.'"
 
But she needed a clean slate, and so she decided to part ways with her old coaching team in Texas and strike out on her own. She moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to train with Damon Allen, Tammy Gambill and Viktor Pfeifer.
 
"Everything parted ways on great terms," Glenn said. "I'm so thankful. It was just time for me to try something new. I couldn't stay in the same environment or the same kind of routine that I had. I had to do something new."
 
It's taken her some time to adjust to the new environment in Colorado – namely the altitude, as well as moving away from Texas and her family for the first time in her life – but the change, she says, has been worth it.
 
"It had been a long time since I had worked with any different coaching staff, and being surrounded by people who are doing these triples and quads and stuff has been extremely motivating," Glenn said. "I'm challenging myself on my programs, on my choreography, on my technical skills. It's been very rewarding. I feel like I'm getting the most out of myself right now."
 
Glenn has had a solid start to the 2022-23 season, finishing third at the Cranberry Cup and fourth at the Lombardia Trophy, where she very nearly landed her first clean triple Axel in competition.
 
She'll be in action at her first Grand Prix of the season, Skate America, Oct. 21-23 in Boston.
 
"I'm just thrilled to be back on Grand Prixs and to be competing at this elite level," Glenn said. "The last time I got to do a large-scale event like that was my last Grand Prix, so it's been a while since I got to perform in front of such a huge crowd – not including the short program when I had COVID at Nationals. But being able to be in front of a crowd like that that's going to be sold out is extremely exciting, and I just hope that I can bring some energy and joy and happiness into the competition."
 
Getting that triple Axel monkey off her back, she says, is a huge goal. But beyond that, she simply wants to skate for the fun of it. Not because she has to. Not to make a team. But because she loves it.
 
"Beforehand, it was kind of a chore and an extremely stressful, frightening thing," Glenn said. "I'm trying to actually remember to enjoy the moment while I'm skating, and just try and perform the best I can. As long as I do those things, the elements tend to come along pretty well."