Milan-bound!

Amber Glenn shows her pride after winning the gold medal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis. Glenn, who came out to Dallas Voice as pansexual in 2019,
was also named to the U.S. Figure Skating Olympic Team. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough

COY COVINGTON | Contributing Writer
CovingtonCoy@gmail.com

The 2026 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships is now on the books … and its definitely one for the history books, too, with Amber Glenn, Plano’s out queer daughter, claiming her third consecutive national championship and seeing her Olympic dream come true.

Now Glenn takes her U.S. title and gold medal to the Milan Cortino Winter Olympics next month along with silver medalist Alysa Liu and bronze medalist Isabeau Levito as the U.S. Women’s Figure Skating team. The three will be trying to earn the American women their first medal since 2006 — and perhaps their first gold since 2002. Glenn is confident this team is capable of that feat.

………………….

Olympic Figure Skating Schedule
Feb. 6: Opening day, Team Event begins
(Ice Dance Rhythm Dance, Pairs Short
Program, Women’s Short Program)
Feb. 7-8: Rest of the Team Event
Feb. 9: Ice Dance Rhythm Dance
Feb. 10: Men’s Singles Short Program
Feb. 11: Ice Dance Free Dance
Feb. 13: Men’s Singles Free Skate
Feb. 15: Pairs Short Program
Feb. 16: Pairs Free Skate
Feb. 17: Women’s Singles Short Program
Feb. 19: Women’s Singles Free Skate
(final day of competition)
Feb. 21: Exhibition Gala

……………….

“If we do our jobs in Milan,” she said, “then more than likely someone is going to be up there.”

Her victory in St. Louis makes Glenn the first woman to win three consecutive U.S. titles since Michelle Kwan who claimed her eighth and final U.S. championship in 2005. And being named to the 2026 Olympic team makes Glenn, at 26, the oldest U.S. woman to make the singles figure skating team in nearly a century and the first openly queer woman to represent the U.S. in Olympic singles figure skating.

Glenn came out as pansexual in an interview with Dallas Voice in 2019.

Making the Olympic team is especially sweet for Glenn, who started skating when she was five and has struggled at times on the road to this moment, going through years of ups and downs as she battled depression and an eating disorder and questioned whether or not she should come out.

Then, in 2022, as she was getting her career back on track, Glenn was named as an alternate to the U.S. Women’s Olympic Figure Skating team, only to be knocked out of contention in the Beijing Olympics not by another competitor or any mistake or her part, but by a positive COVID-19 test.

But this year she finally gets her chance. “I can’t wait to get back home and train,” Glenn said in a statement published on the U.S. Figure Skating Team’s official website. “I’m so thrilled to be able to have the privilege of representing my country at the Olympics. I can’t wait. I’m so excited. I hope I can make my country and myself proud.”

Rounding out the U.S. team
Rounding out the U.S. contingent to Milan will be Ilia Malinin, who won the U.S. gold in St. Louis, alongside silver medalist Andrew Torgashev and bronze medalist Maxim Naumov, Ice Dance teams Madison Chock and Evan Bates, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, and Pairs competitors Ellie Kam and Danny O’Shea, the U.S. silver medalists, and Emily Chan and Spencer Akira Howe.

Malinin, fresh off his fourth straight national title, will be the prohibitive favorite to follow in the footsteps of Nathan Chen by delivering another men’s gold medal for the American squad when he steps on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.

Chock and Bates, who won their record-setting seventh U.S. title Saturday night, also will be among the Olympic favorites.

Making the Olympic team is also the culmination of a dream for Maxim Naumov, the 24-year-old from Simsbury, Conn., who fulfilled not only his hopes, but also the hopes of his late parents.

Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were returning from a talent camp in Kansas when their American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the icy Potomac River in January 2025. The collision killed all 67 people on board both aircraft.

One of the last conversations they had with their son was about what it would take for him to follow in their footsteps by becoming an Olympian.

“We absolutely did it,” Naumov said. “Every day, year after year, we talked about the Olympics. It means so much in our family. It’s what I’ve been thinking about since I was 5 years old, before I even know what to think. I can’t put this into words.”

The 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, officially start with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, Feb. 6.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.