Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn, and Isabeau Levito at the Winter Olympics are proof you don’t have to punish yourself to succeed.
On Sunday, the U.S. figure-skating team took gold at the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics, although to many of us at home, they were winners long before that. On TikTok, fan edits abound of the trio known as the “,” or as they prefer, the “Blade Angels”: Alysa Liu, a rock-star 20-year-old from the Bay Area with a smiley piercing, bleached hair rings, and a whatever-bro attitude; Amber Glenn, a proudly queer 26-year-old from Dallas who lovesand cat eyeliner; and the sweet, wisecracking 18-year-old New Jerseyan Isabeau Levito, the baby of the group.
Close friends who’ve competed alongside one another for years, the three have achieved many impressive feats in their sport. But their greatest triumph is over the idea that you must suffer to be the best.We’re all too familiar with the punishing star athlete pursuing greatness at all costs, a trope visited over and over again in Hollywood films like. At the Olympics, it has played out in the thwarted comeback of 41-year-old skier Lindsey Vonn, who pushed through knee surgery and a torn ACL only to crash 13 seconds into her race. She fractured her left leg and had to be airlifted from the track. In contrast, the U.S. women’s figure-skating trio are proudly and defiantly uninterested in their own pain. It’s their evident love for themselves and their peers that makes them so delightful to watch. Both Liu and Glenn stepped back from competitive figure skating at pivotal moments of their careers and returned on their own terms. Raised by a single father from Taiwan, Liu began skating at the age of 5, and at 13, she became the youngest U.S. national champion in history. But after placing sixth at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, she shocked the figure-skating community by abruptly deciding to retire at the age of 16. She wanted to be a normal teenager. In retirement, she, “I was finally able to hang out with my siblings, do stuff with them like a normal family, and attend my friends’ birthday parties. It’s crazy, I had never done any of that before.” She hiked Mount Everest and road-tripped with her friends. Then she surprised the figure-skating community again by deciding to return under the condition that she would dictate her own training regimen: “No one’s going to starve me or tell me what I can or can’t eat.” Glenn started her career at the same age, and by 8 years old she was competing at junior nationals. But intense stress caused her to spiral; she developed an eating disorder and severe depression, impacting her ability to perform on ice. “Our coaches would pit us against each other, and at 10 years old, we were forced to have this competitiveness and comparison — it’s so toxic,” she. She reacted poorly to the first antidepressant she was prescribed and struggled to talk about her mental health. Eventually, after intervention by a friend, she switched medications and spent a week at an inpatient facility. “I realized that ‘Okay, even if I come out of here and never skate again, I know I have the opportunity to still make a good life for myself,’” she said. In 2019, after she watched American ice dancer Karina Manta come out as bisexual, she came out too. She is the first openly queer female U.S. Olympian. Sports fans have grown to see athletes as metaphors from which we extract stories about human endurance and national glory. The American women of figure skating are saying fuck that — they are people first. Their skating programs aren’t expressions of just technical mastery but also personal taste. Glenn stepped away from social media after receiving hate from Trump fans incensed by her criticisms of the president. But this week, she went back toAs a long-suffering perfectionist whose relentless self-criticism has almost never resulted in better performance — and a native of Amber Glenn’s hometown of Plano, Texas — I’ve found all of this heartening to see. I was especially floored by Glenn’s remarks after a shaky performance in the women’s free skate. Though she was disappointed, she didn’t beat herself up over it: “I’m really proud of my mental perseverance out there … I’m going to reset, recover, get out of the village out there, and act like it’s a whole new competition, because it is,” she28 Best Sneakers for Women in Every Single StyleNow That’s How to Be an Olympic BoyfriendI’ve tried everything to quit cannabis over the years. But how do I give up something I love so much?For the next two years, Saturn will be in Aries. Now is the time to be realistic about your goals.Yesterday at 3:00 p.m.What We Know About Lucy Harrison’s Death A year after the 23-year-old was shot by her father following an argument about Donald Trump, a U.K. coroner ruled the incident “unlawful.”Rachel Scott’s debut show focused on comfortable and practical looks — but it could have used a bit of novelty.Celebrities Are Paying Tribute to James Van Der BeekYou'll receive the next newsletter in your inbox.New York
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