Amber Glenn once saw no future through depression. Now, she has Olympic gold

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MILAN — More than 10 years ago, Amber Glenn was a rising star in figure skating.

 A junior national champion that just made her senior level debut at the 2015 U.S. figure skating championships, greatness was in the cards for Glenn. 

Off the ice, Glenn was suffering. She was battling depression, along with anxiety and an eating disorder. While everyone saw massive potential, all of the pressure was accumulating and became too much.

Glenn reached her lowest point. 

"I didn't want to be on this Earth anymore," Glenn said.

Things were bad, but Glenn sought help; she was admitted to a facility for treatment. It allowed her to take a step back from it all, connect with family and friends. But most of all, she "felt like I wanted to have a future again."

A future that includes the 2026 Winter Olympics. Glenn already has a gold medal as part of Team USA, and she will begin the women's singles competition Tuesday, Feb. 17. The event begins at 6:45 p.m. ET at Milano Ice Skating Arena.

Has it been the perfect road to Milano Cortina? No, but it took immeasurable strength for Glenn to push through. She no longer hides who she is and embraces the decade-long journey. Even better, she’s been an advocate for LGBTQ rights and mental health awareness. 

Glenn has championed the new look of women’s figure skating in the U.S., increased camaraderie and support among competitors, and that’s not the only championship she can have, with an Olympic gold medal in sight.

"It took just completely stripping down to just survive every day, just wake up and make it to the next day,” Glenn said. "It's taken a decade to get to where I am now.”

The approach on the ice needed to change too.

To start, she felt like she was too rough around the edges, not fitting the mold of a traditional women’s skater. Too muscular, too big and not as feminine as the rest of the field, she thought.

It scared her, and she really tried to avoid it becoming a thing. But then she realized she could embrace it, and let the world know it’s OK not to have the typical look. 

"If we're ever going to get past that worry, someone has to do it,” she said. "Someone has to break that mold and break that stereotype in order for the next person who comes out not to be afraid of that."

There was also getting stuck in her head during performances. Glenn felt like she was too passionate and wasn’t focusing on the technical side of her programs. 

All of the changes in mentality came with the help of sports psychology, something Glenn fully embraces as part of her training. Specifically, she uses neurofeedback, which teaches self-control of brain functions like thoughts and breathing techniques through audio and visual stimulation, according to the National Library of Medicine. Through this, she can gain control of her heart rate and adrenaline to maintain a steady level in what could be stressful moments.

"It's really helped me especially control that fight or flight state that we get into when we have adrenaline and we have nerves,” she said.

All the work took years, with wins sprinkled in between tough showings, leading to her ultimately just missing the cut to the 2022 Winter Olympics, named an alternate.  

It was a major let down for Glenn, but with so much work, it didn’t stop her. After that, the wins started piling on. 

Grand Prix event wins. The 2025 Grand Prix Final champion, and the queen of U.S. figure skating as the three-time reigning national champion, captured with a magnificent showing in January that officially punched her ticket to her first Winter Olympics. 

Amber Glenn’s advocacy

Glenn’s Olympics appearance makes history. At 26 years old, she is the oldest American Olympics women’s singles skater since Beatrix Loughran in 1928, hence she jokes she’s "a little bit of a dinosaur.”

But there’s another distinction: Glenn is the first openly queer woman on a U.S. Olympic singles figure skating team.

After struggling with her identity for so long, Glenn embraces who she is and isn’t afraid to showcase it to the world. You’ll notice her frequently sporting a pin with the LGBTQ+ flag. When she celebrates, she’ll find the flag and proudly hold it and drape it on her shoulders, which is her Instagram profile picture.

And she’ll always speak out for her community.

"Being an advocate for the queer community and for mental health is one of the reasons why I keep going, and being able to be that person who has this platform,” Glenn said.

Ahead of the Games, she gave a powerful statement about the Trump Administration’s approach to the LGBTQ+ community, as she said "it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities,” and she wanted to use her platform in Milano Cortina to encourage people "to stay strong in these hard times.”

"I know that a lot of people say you're just an athlete, like, stick to your job, shut up about politics, but politics affect us all,” Glenn said. "It is something that I will not just be quiet about, because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives."

Glenn received backlash for it, calling it "really disappointing,” but vowed to "never stop using my voice for what I truly believe in.”

Even though she’s only a few years older than her fellow “Blade Angels” Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito, they look up to Glenn like a big sister, continuing to admire all she does.

“Amber, she has so much love, and I love that,” Liu said. “She just radiates that.”

Already with team gold, Glenn now is out for women’s Olympic champion, with a great shot at reaching the podium and breaking a 20-year drought without a medal in the discipline for the U.S. It’s a massive moment packed with pressure, and Glenn isn’t trying to avoid the circumstances. 

The moment will arrive and it won’t break her. Yes, she still has depression. And anxiety. And ADHD. It still affects her, but it doesn’t limit her anymore.

"Of course, there's going to be some stressful parts," Glenn said. "But I have found many ways to cope with it, and many ways to be able to embrace it as not just stress and pressure, but excitement and enthusiasm, because I'm doing something that I've worked my entire life for.”

It takes extreme vulnerability to let the world in on your mental health journey. Glenn didn’t have to do that, yet it was important for her.

In a sport where perfection is demanded, Glenn wanted to show you don’t need to be perfect to be good. It’s OK to not be OK, and it doesn’t have to define you.

"I've been very outspoken about the ups and downs that I've had in my career, because I want people to know that that's okay,” she said. "I'm grateful to you to be here and to be able to live out this dream after having suffered for a while, and I still am working on my mental health. It's something that's with you forever. 

"I know that even past my skating career, I have learned so many lessons from them, and I hope that after my career is done, I can keep helping the next generation in figure skating.”

Remember, a decade ago, none of this seemed remotely possible for Glenn. That’s thanks to a continuous evolution where Glenn accepts who she is, and embraces everything – good and bad – that got her to this point. When she takes the Olympic stage, she can just be Amber Glenn. 

Battle-scarred, and happily showing the beauty within it.

"I've had to work very, very hard for a very long time to just slowly build to get to where I am today,” she said. "It has been a slow rise that I'm very proud of.”