Amber Glenn takes third consecutive U.S. Figure Skating title
2026 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships: Women
Amber Glenn dominated the Women’s event at the 2026 U.S. Championships, taking her third consecutive national title in St. Louis, Mo. Alysa Liu settled for silver, while Isabeau Levito took the bronze.
Amber Glenn
On Wednesday night in the short program, Glenn performed her dynamic Madonna “Like a Prayer” routine sensationally. She electrified the Enterprise Center audience with her opening triple Axel and followed up with a triple flip-triple toe and triple loop out of footwork. The judges rated all of the 2024-25 Grand Prix Final champion’s spins and footwork sequence as level four. Glenn earned a whopping national record-setting score of 83.05 to win the night over Liu and Levito.
“I feel ecstatic,” Glenn exuded after the short program. “The score was huge. I was not expecting that. I was walking through my program backstage and I felt just, like, something with me and I started crying before I even skated. And it was, just, my grandma passed last year and she was with me from day one in my skating, and I just felt it today. And, I’m not usually one of those people that says that, but, I just felt like I had something helping me today through the nerves. And I feel like that presence was kind of there with me. So, I was really grateful for that and that experience today.”
“The stress coming into this after, you know, four years ago, was immense,” Glenn reflected on her terrible 2022 Olympic run in which she succumbed to COVID and had to withdraw from the national championships in Nashville and miss qualifying for an Olympic berth. “But I felt so much support from my team, from my family, from my fans and my fellow competitors, that it made it to where I felt like I was able to just go out there and do what I do every day. And I told myself, like, ‘You’re gonna have fun in that footwork today. No matter what, no matter how things go, you are going to enjoy it.’ Because I feel like I get so wrapped up in ‘I need to do my job, I need to do my job’ to where I forget that I’m doing this because I love it.”
Glenn wove a spell over the St. Louis audience on Friday night with her “I Will Find You” free skate. The defending national champion two-footed her opening triple Axel, but proceeded to execute seven more triple jumps including the triple flip-triple toe combination and triple loop-double Axel-double Axel sequence. The only other error was an underrotated triple loop. All of Glenn’s spins were rated level four however, her step sequence was a level three. She placed first in this segment with 150.50 points and overall (233.55).
“I’m still in disbelief,” the 26-year-old said after the free skate. “Honestly, the ladies were on fire this competition, and I couldn’t be more proud of how far we’ve come. As I was saying, I of course, had the performance of my life on Wednesday and was so happy with it. And going forward, I wanted to bring the same energy to my free skate. I think I stayed calm and I handled the pressure well, but I really want to get that same exciting feeling that I did in the short program into the free skate going forward.”
“I felt like I was gonna throw up,” Glenn said about her nerves prior to competing. “My stomach’s been bothering me all day. I was just trying to get in touch with my body and get a feel of the ice. And I think my years of experience kicked in, and I was really happy I was able to get through it on my feet, both the warmups and the competition. I’ve been working on the mental and physical side for a while now and I’m happy to see it come together.”
“Whether it’s the team event or the singles event, all we got to do is do our job,” Glenn said about the pressure and expectation on herself, Liu and Levito to break the U.S. women’s twenty-year Olympic medal drought. “As long as we do our programs to the best for our abilities. We cannot control the outcome. But I think the U.S. ladies have come so, so far in the last two decades that if all three of us do our jobs in Milan, then more than likely someone’s gonna be up there. As long as we all stick to what we do best, then we will break that drought.”
Alysa Liu
The 2025 World champion opened her nationals by skating her tender short program set to “Promise” by Laufey cleanly to score 81.11 points. The program received all level-four elements and she managed a clean execution of the difficult triple Lutz-triple loop combination which has eluded her for much of the season. She was less than two points behind Glenn heading into the Friday night free skate.
“I feel over the moon right now,” Liu joyously said afterwards. “I’m so happy with that short program. I would say that’s my favorite short program I’ve done and I performed for an audience. So, I am just so happy about it. And specifically, I’m really happy about the Lutz-loop and my layback spin, actually. Like y’all: that was real good!”
The 2025-26 Grand Prix Final champion debuted her new Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” free skate in a silvery dress and managed seven triple jumps, however two were marked as a quarter underrotated. Despite what appeared to be incomplete choreography and significant portions of crosscuts, Liu delivered level four spins and footwork to score 147.80, enough to hang onto second place.
“I was so excited about my short program,” said the 20-year-old. “And the free skate. I think I liked it. I have to watch it back. I’m a visual critic of myself but it felt pretty good and I was really confident out there. And I did see the protocol. I need to get those rotations, man, so I’m gonna work on that. But other than that, I’m really happy, and I’m really proud of how all of us did.”
Isabeau Levito
Levito performed her provocative “Zou Bisou Bisou” short program with panache and precision, landing her jumps cleanly and scoring level fours from the judges on all spins. She finished the night in third place with 75.72 points.
“I feel very satisfied with myself today,” the 2024 World silver medalist said after the short program. “I feel like I did my job. This competition is feeling really like a big show, like, the announcing and the lights and the suspenseful music. It’s all sounding like this, like really big, like show. So, I felt a little different and I felt really happy with myself that I did my job and just satisfied. Nothing crazy.”
“It’s really close to my own character and my own personality,” Levito said of the character portrayal in the short program. “Especially as a child, such a diva. So, this is kind of easy for me to portray because I just need to kind of almost really be myself, but, like, extreme. And it’s a lot of fun to portray this confident diva, because it’s something I really believe in, like ‘Fake it till you make it’ kind of thing.”
Levito carried the momentum into the free skate where she charmed the judges with her delicate interpretation of “Cinema Paradiso” by Ennio Morricone, bolstered by seven triples jumps and two double Axels. Only the back end of her opening triple flip-triple toe combination was deemed underrotated. She scored 148.73–bettering Liu in the free skate–for a total competition score of 224.45.
“I’m very satisfied with my performance today,” said the 18-year-old. “I feel like it reflected the training that I put in prior to this competition, and it was definitely… I’m trying to find the right words, not difficult. Maybe. Well, yes, difficult. But like, you know, I had to do it right here, right now, for this moment and first time to compete nationals on the Olympic year, being age eligible for the Olympics. So, it was like extra pressure. But I’m really glad that I was able to just rely on my training to get me through the program with no big problems or anything. So, I’m just happy.”
Bradie Tennell
While the trio of Glenn, Liu and Levito, dominated news coverage and social media interest, Bradie Tennell ensured that none of the top three cruised to their medals.
The 2018 Olympian was inspired during her free skate to The Mission soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Apart from a “q” call on the toe landing of her opening triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination, Tennell skated cleanly to earn 141.35 points and a standing ovation from the Enterprise Center audience. The two-time U.S. national champion placed fourth overall with a total score of 211.48 and won the pewter medal.
“I don’t know if I can adequately describe the way that putting a program like that out at Nationals in an Olympic year feels,” she said. “I’ve been dreaming of that moment for four years, and it was just every hardship, every struggle, every moment where I doubted myself, sitting there at center ice after having done a program like that. I just felt so much pride and was so overwhelmed with joy and gratitude and so much love for the sport. You know, this sport has brought me so much, so much of everything, like pain, suffering, all of that, but also so many amazing opportunities. I’ve met so many amazing people, my fellow athletes. This is what you dream about, and to have achieved that here today, that was my entire goal.”
“For lack of a better term, ‘Oh shit,'” Tennell said about her angst before taking the ice. “Because I missed Olympics four years ago, so my last Olympic nationals was eight years ago. I said to Jeremy (Allen), right before I got on the ice, ‘How in the hell did I do this eight years ago?’ You know? Because it was my third year senior in 2018, but it was my first senior Olympic year nationals. And I’m just like, looking around and remembering, and now I have all this other experience under my belt, and I’m, I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I did this.’ But yeah, I was nervous. How can you not be with the roar of the crowd in the warm up? I went in for a jump and I was like, ‘Holy crap. That’s so loud!’ I forgot how loud it gets. But like, what a feeling, right? It’s not every day that you have, you know, however many people are here, 10,000 people or whatever, screaming, because you just did something. You know, that’s like, so cool. So I just, I wanted to let the energy of the arena feed my performance. And honestly, that program I train like that every day. That’s exactly how I train every single day. So, that’s all I wanted to do. I just wanted to skate the way that I train and I knew that I could, because I do it pretty much every day.”
“I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about, you know, after this season,” the 27-year-old said of her future. “But, I felt it would be doing myself a disservice to try and decide that while I was still in the thick of it. So, we’ve tabled that for now, and we’re staying in the moment.”
Sarah Everhardt battled illness to finish in fifth place with a total score of 209.47. Sophie Joline Von Felten placed sixth (190.80) followed by Starr Andrews (183.50) and Sherry Zhang (180.24).
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