Amber Glenn, the skater redefining what power looks like on the ice

When Amber Glenn takes the ice for the free skate on Friday night at the world figure skating championships in Boston after a disappointing short program, fans will be holding their breath. Undefeated this season, she was seen as the one to beat. The Grand Prix final Champion, two-time US champion, the only woman to regularly land a triple Axel in competition (on which she suffered an uncharacteristic fall, landing her ninth place in the short on Wednesday afternoon), she had been tipped to become the first US woman to win the world title in nearly 20 years. But with less than seven points between her and first place, nothing is impossible. And while much of the tenacity that could still bring her victory this week lies in her raw athleticism, Glenn has something in her arsenal more tenuous, and more volatile: She’s an artist.

At first glance, Glenn doesn’t appear so different to the all-American skating stars of past decades. Slender, with blonde curled hair framing her perfectly made up face, she doesn’t overtly break the mold. But when the music starts, something else takes over. She’s explosive; her movements deliberate, and there’s a weight to her actions that not only enables her to drive across the ice like a hockey player, but to display exquisite musicality, showcasing a sensitivity and showmanship that has gained her a devoted fanbase (and 1.5m TikTok followers).

For Glenn’s choreographers, Katherine Hill and Kaitlyn Weaver, working with the 25-year-old means almost limitless possibility. “When Amber and I take the ice, it’s play time,” says Weaver, herself a three-time world medallist. “I’ll say, ‘Could you do this? What about that?’ And of course, the answer is always, ‘yes.’”

For much of the history of the sport, women figure skaters have been praised for their elegance, creating clean lines from fingertips to toes while typically performing to classical or romantic music, Weaver says. And generally, female skaters will choose one of two roles to portray: seductress or princess-like ingenue. Of course, there have been exceptions to this, but Glenn’s natural muscular skill, offset by an ability to execute balletic elegance offers a new approach, averting claims she looks too rough, or “masculine” – critiques often levied at women who focus solely on athletic skill. (Tonya Harding is one notable example.)

“When I think about creating [routines] for male or female athletes, there are intrinsic differences in what they will want their performance to look like, what their body is capable of, and what they will be judged on,” Hill says. “With Amber, some of those differences feel like they don’t exist.”

Amber Glenn of the United States performs her routine during an official practice ahead of the world championships on Tuesday in Boston. Photograph: Tim Clayton/Corbis/Getty Images

Hill joined Glenn’s team three years ago, and says that as a choreographer, she often asks skaters if they see themselves as athletes or artists. Most will think briefly before choosing “athlete,” but with Glenn, the answer is clearly the latter. Hill believes that along with innate ability, lessons learned from cultivating a large social media following have also made an impact on Glenn’s creativity. She understands the importance of timing – matching an exciting or beautiful move with a musical crescendo, grabbing attention and drawing the audience in. She also understands that figure skating is a judged sport, and just like her followers, judges want to be entertained.

Watch her skate, and you’ll see one-handed cartwheels, massive “butterfly” leaps in which she launches herself horizontally into the air, and physics-defying cantilevers – a move that has her gliding on her blades down the ice like she’s taking part in the most extreme limbo contest possible, hair brushing back on the ice. She’s itching to include a backflip. And of course there’s the triple Axel. She isn’t the first to perform any of these moves, but she’s the first to package them together – and to pull them off in competition. All this sounds extremely athletic – and it is – but the overall impression is more of a contemporary dancer than a champion figure skater.

For many fans, the allure of figure skating is its proximity to the arts; but for over 300 years, it’s been a competed sport, and as a sport, there are restrictions and requirements that level what athletes must perform. In the men’s and women’s disciplines, jumps – skaters leaping high into the air and rotating as many as four times before landing on a single blade – have become integral to the sport. Glenn understands the need for recognizable, judgable elements, but she believes the sport could benefit from loosening its obsession with jumps.

“I have so many things that are in my arsenal that I would love to perform in competition. But some of the more interesting and creative moves just aren’t worth the risk,” Glenn says. Sometimes she’s had to take out some of the more experimental actions Hill and Weaver have created for her because she needs more time to set up a jump, and she believes fans want more.

“Whenever I post online, it’s very rare that a jump [gets more engagement] than a fast spin or a cantilever, or split leap,” Glenn says. “Most people don’t see the difference between a triple flip and triple lutz. The only reason why they know that a quad is hard is because they’re told it is.” There’s a chance she may get her wish. Last season the International Skating Union put forward a proposal to reduce the number of required jumps from seven to six, although this was not ultimately passed for the current Olympic cycle.

Even so, Hill says each choreographic body movement – from every arm motion, to every turn of her head – is highly trained. Together, they talk about what Glenn should be feeling and thinking in each moment, what the music is expressing and how she can respond to it. In other words, she’s training like a dancer. And while Glenn says she has loved choreographing and creating routines to music since she was a child, some aspects of this approach remain out of her comfort zone.

“Growing up, I always skated to more intense music,” Glenn says. “I would make things so big, and I’d go so fast. But over time, I’ve learned faster isn’t always better. I was like, go, go, go! Because if I ever took a moment to do something, I felt like, Oh, my God, I’m being still. I can’t be still. And that’s something even now I struggle with.”

Glenn: ‘I have so many things that are in my arsenal that I would love to perform in competition. But some of the more interesting and creative moves just aren’t worth the risk.’ Photograph: Jurij Kodrun/International Skating Union/Getty Images

Her coach, Damon Allen, says that getting her to slow down is often a huge part of his role. They started using an app that tracks her heart rate, and he now uses real-time metrics to remind her to regain a sense of calm.

“She’s a perfectionist, and so, if she has an issue with an element, she wants to do it 15 times until she feels it’s right,” Allen says. “I’ll have to say, ‘All right, we don’t need to do 15. Let’s move on to something else.’”

It’s clearly working. After several starts and stops in her career due to injury and mental health concerns, in just two seasons Glenn has soared to the top of the sport.

Glenn’s coaching team all say her popularity with fans and her huge social media following is in no small part because both off and on the ice, her personality shines through. She takes the time to check in with young skaters around her, asking them how they’re doing, and remembering to follow up. Glenn is also the first woman skater at her level to come out as queer while still competing, and she’s an active champion for LGBTQ+ rights.

“She’s the real deal,” Allen says. She’s not afraid to tell you about her problems, her anxiety, her ADHD. She is a great advocate for mental health, and I think a lot of people gravitate to that.”

Regardless of the final results at the World Championships on Friday, Glenn has cemented herself as a game changer. And while at 25, she’s older than many of her competitors, she’s making no sign of slowing down. Allen says the feedback he receives from judges and officials is simply to “Keep Amber, Amber,” and to keep pushing forward.

“When I think of skaters that are going to be remembered, it’s people that change the game,” says Weaver. “With Amber’s highlights, her jumps, her ability to tell a story, her ability to entertain a crowd, all of those things put together make her the first of her kind.”