America’s 14-year drought of girls’s figure skating Grand Prix champions ended Saturday when Amber Glenn overcame elite Japanese opponents to take first place.
Glenn gained the primary ladies’s singles closing gold medal for the U.S. since 2010.
She held off Japan’s Mone Chiba, Hana Yoshida, Kaori Sakamoto, Rino Matsuike and Wakaba Higuchi, who completed second via sixth in that order. Glenn’s victory got here by a margin of simply 0.69 factors over Chiba.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
At 25, the Texan is the oldest Grand Prix Ultimate winner since Russia’s Irina Slutskaya gained her fourth and closing title in December 2004 at 26. It units Glenn up as a prime contender on the world championships in Boston March 23-30, lower than a 12 months out from the 2026 Olympics.
There was a time in Glenn’s profession when it appeared she would obtain a feat like this a lot sooner. In 2014, she gained the U.S. junior championships. However she stepped away from skating in 2015 over points with despair.
She returned later that 12 months however had one of many worst performances of her profession with a sixth-place end on the 2015 Autumn Basic Worldwide. She has since referred to as the expertise “a catastrophe,” in line with The Washington Publish.
BOISE STATE WINS MOUNTAIN WEST CHAMPIONSHIP AS FIRST EXPANDED CFP BRACKET BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE
She took one other depart from the game after that and has since revealed that, throughout that point, she was advised by medical doctors to go away the game “indefinitely.” However she returned to coaching in early 2016. Glenn by no means fairly lived as much as her 2014 junior championship kind in senior stage competitions after that.
In December 2019, Glenn introduced she was pansexual, which means she’s romantically interested in individuals no matter gender.
“The concern of not being accepted is a big wrestle for me,” she advised Dallas Voice. “Being perceived as ‘only a section’ or ‘indecisive’ is a standard factor for bisexual/pansexual ladies. I don’t need to shove my sexuality in individuals’s faces, however I additionally don’t need to conceal who I’m.”
Glenn cited the North Texas-based ice skating workforce of Ashley Cain-Gribble and her queer associate Timothy LeDuc as “position fashions” in her accepting her sexuality, in line with Dallas Voice.
In an interview with Crew USA in 2021, Glenn stated her expertise rising up as a determine skater launched her to homosexual stereotypes. She later stated she developed “crushes” on feminine skaters.
“Rising up in determine skating, the stereotype was at all times that the lads had been homosexual,” Glenn stated. “At 16, when my associates and coaching mates had been beginning to take a look at the other intercourse, I used to be crushing on each men and women.”
Glenn has solely been recognized to have a romantic relationship with males’s determine skater Nathan Chen. The 2 dated in 2016, expressing their affection via Instagram posts.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Gold medalist Amber Glenn of the USA poses with a medal in the course of the medal ceremony on the ISU Grand Prix of Determine Skating Ultimate — Grenoble at Patinoire Polesud Dec. 7, 2024, in Grenoble, France. (Daniela Porcelli/Worldwide Skating Union/Worldwide Skating Union)
“My love for you fashioned steadily. Your persona, your voice, your hair, your eyes, your humor, every little thing. You’re the one particular person I want to speak to once I’m having a foul day, the one particular person I can depend on to not decide me. You’re my rock, my finest pal, and probably the most wonderful boyfriend I may ask for,” she wrote to Chen in an Instagram submit.
Their relationship is believed to have resulted in 2017, and she or he got here out as pansexual two years after that. Glenn stated that she was afraid being overtly pansexual “would have an effect on her scores” in an interview with NBC Sports in January.
“After I got here out initially, I used to be terrified. I used to be scared it will have an effect on my scores or one thing,” she advised the ouglet.
It did not have an effect on her scores sufficient to maintain her from profitable a historic medal Saturday.
Glenn is now in place to make her first Winter Olympics workforce.
Observe Fox Information Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Source link
