Plano figure skater Amber Glenn made history in St. Louis on Wednesday, January 7, earning the highest women\u2019s short-program score ever recorded at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.<\/p>\n
Glenn scored 83.05, breaking the previous high score of 81.11 set by her competitor Alysa Liu just minutes before she took the ice.<\/p>\n
Going into the 2026 championships, the highest score ever recorded for a women\u2019s short program had been 79.04.<\/p>\n
Glenn, the two-time defending national champion, was the only skater to complete a triple Axel in her short program, considered the most difficult triple jump in women\u2019s competition. She also landed a triple flip-triple toe combination and, in the bonus-rich second half, a triple loop.<\/p>\n
But it was her choreographic step sequence at the end that blew the roof off the St. Louis ice arena. Wearing a maroon lace dress with beaded necklaces, Glenn skated to Madonna\u2019s 1989 hit \u201cLike a Prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the lyric \u201cLet the choir sing,\u201d she invited the crowd into her dance party; they clapped, cheered, and boogied in their seats while she danced, spun, and slid across the ice to the song\u2019s iconic chorus.<\/p>\n
After the performance, she pumped her fist in the air as the audience rose to its feet and threw plushies on the ice (nearly hitting her).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was everything,\u201d commentator Tara Lipinski said. \u201cI have goosebumps. This is incredible skating. It\u2019s blending what skating is all about: She is fearless. She is doing difficult elements, she\u2019s not backing down. She does a triple Axel. She risks it, and then she skates with so much heart and beauty in her own style and own way.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a post-performance interview, Glenn said she’d felt her late grandmother, who passed nearly a year ago, helping her through the performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so ecstatic and for some reason, I felt my grandma with me today,” she told NBC’s Andrea Joyce. “That meant a lot and I think she really got me through this. It was a whole new experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glenn, 26, was born and raised in Plano<\/a> but has trained in Colorado Springs since 2022. Her father, Richard Glenn, a Plano police sergeant, was in the audience for her record-setting night in St. Louis.<\/p>\n Glenn and Liu seem like locks for the 2026 Olympic<\/a> team, along with Isabeau Levito, who scored 75.72 for third place after the short program.<\/p>\n They will skate their four-minute free programs on Friday, January 9 to determine the national title.<\/p>\n The U.S. Figure Skating Olympic team heading to Milano-Cortina in February will be named on Sunday, January 11.<\/p>\n