It seemed Amber Glenn had everything under control. Competing in the women’s short program, she nailed a triple axel to start, drawing huge cheers from the crowd. Glenn also executed a triple flip and triple toe loop gracefully as the fans sang along to her music choice of Like a Prayer by Madonna. At one point, the 26-year-old had announced herself as a strong medal contender. Then everything went awry. 

Glenn was supposed to perform a triple loop. The women’s figure skating rules need an axel-type jump, a jump combination with a triple, and another triple jump. On her final triple attempt, she bailed out at the final second as it came out as only a double loop. The judges had no choice but to mark that element as invalid, and she received no points for that. Naturally, her final score was severely decreased, receiving only 67.39. Glenn finished 13th, almost ending her chances of a medal. 

“I don’t know what happened, I had it,” she could be heard saying in the Kiss-and-Cry.

Glenn was devastated.

Initially, she tried to keep it together when the scores were announced. However, Glenn broke down as her coach, Damon Allen, rubbed her back. She stayed to catch a glimpse of Mone Chiba’s performance, but then walked off in the tunnel. It was a disappointing performance from one of the most promising figure skaters from the United States.

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As the dust settled on her short program, a wave of fan reactions quickly flooded social media.

Fans rain down criticism on Amber Glenn after her disappointing short program

“Where are they digging these athletes up? This is the best?” asked a fan. “Turns out she wasn’t that great after all…” wrote another.

Yet Glenn’s CV speaks for itself. She has 3 gold medals in the US Championships, a silver, and a bronze. Glenn also won the 2024-25 Grand Prix gold and was part of the Milano Cortina team event, winning the gold medal as well. She seems more than capable of succeeding at the highest level. This failure could be more of a mental one rather than relating to her actual ability.

She has battled depression, an eating disorder, and anxiety, and still powered through at the highest level.

“I didn’t want to be on this Earth anymore,” Glenn said.

While she has largely overcome these troubles, they could still seep into her performance on the biggest stage. Pressure is high; a second of hesitation can bring years of hard work tumbling down. 

“First Ilia Malinin, now Amber Glenn. Why are the Americans choking?” wrote another fan.

Arguably, Ilia Malinin’s loss was even more shocking. Malinin fell twice during a catastrophic free skate, which sent him out of podium contention. Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan went on to claim gold in a stunning finish. Malinin himself later said that he was not ready to handle the Olympic pressure. 

“Honestly, it’s not a pleasant feeling. The most honest way to say it is it’s just a lot of on you, just so many eyes, so much attention,” Malinin said of the high expectations. “It really can get to you if you’re not ready to fully embrace it, so I think that might be one of the mistakes I made going into that free skate was that I was not ready to handle that to a full extent.” 

“Anyone that knows figure skating knew Amber Glenn was going to choke; we just didn’t know if it would be the short or long program when she debuted it. 😂,” wrote a fan.

Glenn does have a history of faltering at the big moments. In the World Figure Skating Championships 2025, she fell on the triple axel. She then popped her planned triple flip-triple toe loop combination into a triple-double and finished the segment in third place. At the 2025 Grand Prix Final, she popped her attempted triple axel to open her Madonna short program. Glenn finished at No. 6 with a score of 66.85. 

Irrespective of that, it is almost certain that this performance is going to sting for a while.