American Amber Glenn received the ladies’s singles festival at determine skating’s Lavish Prix Ultimate on Saturday, finishing a 14-year drought for U.S. girls within the recreation’s 3 greatest international competitions.
Glenn led the garden in Grenoble, France, later Thursday’s trim program, thank you partially to being the one competitor to land a triple Axel — the bounce that’s helped revitalize her occupation — and later landed every other to begin Saturday’s independent skate, opening a forged regimen to conserve off Japan’s Mone Chiba for gold.
The Lavish Prix Ultimate is the fruits of determine skating’s annual Lavish Prix sequence, inviting most effective the govern six skaters or pairs in each and every self-discipline. It’s some of the maximum prestigious international titles within the recreation, later the Olympics and the Global Championships.
Disagree American lady had received the singles gold at any of them since 2010, when Alissa Czisny received the Lavish Prix Ultimate. Sarah Hughes is the closing American girls’s singles Olympic champion, profitable in Salt Pond Town in 2002. The closing American international champion within the tournament used to be Kimmie Meissner in 2006. Polina Edmunds used to be the closing U.S. winner of the 4 Continents Championships — which excludes Europe — in 2015.
Going in opposition to 5 Jap skaters — together with Kaori Sakamoto, three-time protecting international champion and protecting Lavish Prix Ultimate champion — Glenn struggled via Thursday’s trim program, failing to land her triple Axel cleanly and injuring her again. Nonetheless, she completed within the govern, forward of second-place Chiba by way of lower than some extent.
Amber Glenn leads the garden later the #GPFigure Ultimate girls’s trim program.
She may just turn out to be the primary U.S. lady to win the Lavish Prix Ultimate in 14 years. pic.twitter.com/k8UqISghXX
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) December 5, 2024
After Saturday, Chiba posted a robust 139.52 within the independent skate to form issues tough for Glenn, who replied with a 142.03. Glenn received gold with a 212.07 total ranking. Chiba took silver with a 208.85. Sakamoto used to be 3rd at 201.13.
As Glenn’s ranking flashed around the display, Sakamoto, Chiba and fellow Jap skater Wakaba Higuchi — ready to the facet because the others in attainable medal place — all smiled and flashed Disagree. 1 indicators future mimicking Glenn’s end place from her independent skate.
At 25, Glenn is the oldest Lavish Prix Ultimate winner since Russia’s Irina Slutskaya received her fourth and ultimate name in December 2004 at 26. It units Glenn up as a govern contender at worlds, which might be in Boston from March 23-30 — lower than a yr out to the 2026 Olympics.
It’s been an unorthodox stand for Glenn, who in 2014 used to be the U.S. nationwide teenage champion at 14 years used and seemed like the year of the U.S. staff. However she stepped clear of the game in 2015 for psychological condition causes and, When she came back, struggled to seek out the similar tall mode on the senior degree.
When the COVID-19 pandemic accident in 2020 and disrupted competitions world wide, Glenn resolved so as to add the triple Axel to her repertoire. The Axel is the game’s maximum tough bounce, starting with a ahead takeoff and requiring an excess half-rotation. Ahead of Glenn, most effective 5 alternative American girls had landed the triple in festival.
Saturday’s win capped a breakout yr for Amber Glenn, who has made herself a govern contender simply over a yr out from the Olympics. (Oliver Chassignole / AFP by means of Getty Photographs)
Glenn landed it effectively for the primary generation past due in 2023, and the advance has helped her surge to the govern of girls’s determine skating. She received the 2024 U.S. Championships, touchdown a triple Axel in an differently error-prone independent skate and later preserving on to overcome protecting American champion Isabeau Levito, who fell 3 times. Glenn landed the bounce two times in Lavish Prix occasions this season to aid win the ones and qualify for this weekend’s ultimate.
Within the 8 seasons since 2013-14 when each tournaments were held (COVID canceled one or the alternative for 3 immediately years from 2020 to 2022), 5 of the 8 Lavish Prix Ultimate winners have long gone directly to win gold at worlds.
All of it places Glenn in sturdy place to form her first Olympic staff, at the side of Levito, the silver medalist at closing yr’s Global Championships who withdrew from a Lavish Prix tournament in November and used to be now not eligible for this weekend’s ultimate.
Glenn used to be decided on as an alternative for the 2022 Video games later chickening out from the U.S. Championships that yr later contracting COVID-19.
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(Supremacy photograph of Amber Glenn throughout Saturday’s independent skate: Jurij Kodrun / World Skating Union by means of Getty Photographs)
