MILAN — Figure skating as a sport and an Olympic endeavor is built on hope — hope that a skater's next routine will be flawless, hope that their grace and artistry will be enough to impress the judges, hope that the precise combination of athleticism and emotion will lead to an Olympic medal. But for the United States, hope hasn't carried the day since 2006.
That's how long it's been since an American woman has won an Olympic medal, any medal, in individual figure skating. Sasha Cohen captured a silver in 2006, and Sarah Hughes and Michelle Kwan won gold and bronze, respectively, in 2002. It's been two decades since the once-dominant American women have stood anywhere on the podium.
Will Milan Cortina break that dubious streak? Some notable observers think this could be the Olympics where American women reassert their figure skating dominance.
"I don't think I have seen a team this good in decades," Tara Lipinski, Olympic gold medalist-turned-NBC commentator, said recently.
That's because the trio of Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito — affectionately known as the Blade Angels — are rolling into Milan Cortina with more momentum and hope than any Olympic contingent in many years.
"We have a team that is really looking strong for the podium," Lipinski added, then went a step further. "There's a part of me that could see a possible U.S. sweep happening."
A sweep? All three medals? Sounds far-fetched, until you start to look at the numbers. All three rank in the top 5 in theInternational Skating Union's world rankings, behind Japan's Kaori Sakamoto (1) and Mone Chiba (2). All three medaled at the highly competitive U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis last month. And all three represent America in the very best way.
"It's very special that there's a woman from figure skating representing each section of the country," said Johnny Weir, Lipinski's fellow Olympian and NBC commentator. "Isabeau Levito is from south Jersey to southside Philly. Amber Glenn is from Texas, and Alysa Liu from California, and I think it's cool that there's those three different perspectives and three different styles in each of those women."
"As long as we do our programs to the best of our abilities, we cannot control the outcome," Glenn said recently. "But I think the US ladies have come so, so far in the last two decades, that if we do our jobs in Milan … then more than likely someone's going to be up there."
So who exactly are the Blade Angels? Get to know America's next great figure skating hopes:
Amber Glenn
The three-time defending national champion, Amber Glenn learned to skate at a suburban Dallas mall, showing such early promise that her parents took on extra shifts to fund her skating, and scoured eBay to find secondhand skates.
But after years of competitive skating, and all the attendant pressure to perform and fit into a narrowly-defined box, Glenn rebelled. She focused more on her mental health than her on-ice performance, and she embraced her true self by coming out in 2019. She's only continued to add to her accolades since then.
"She is so special and important for our sport, the way that she's so open and vulnerable about her mental health issues and struggles and how she overcomes the doubts and the pressure that she faces," Lipinski said.
Glenn missed the 2022 Olympics in Beijing when she tested positive for COVID just before the U.S. championships. But since then, she's won those three straight U.S. titles, and her technical repertoire is second to none.
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"She's landing consistent triple axels. She's leading the world in many ways in terms of that technical side of our sport and the artistic side," Weir said. "She really wears her heart on her sleeve when she performs, which makes it very welcoming to watch her."
Alysa Liu
No Olympian skates with more freewheeling joy, and none have a better backstory than Liu either. Born and raised in California, she began skating at 5, and became the youngest-ever U.S. champion in 2019 at age 13. She was named to the U.S. Olympic team in 2022, but like so many others, resisted the relentless pressure of the skating life. She walked away from the sport entirely in 2023, getting in touch with herself and even hiking to Mount Everest's base camp.
She returned to the sport in 2024, and all she's done since then is win a world championship and skate her way onto her second Olympic team.
"She's so relatable and so authentic in the way that she performs and competes," Lipinski said. "She is skating in her own little bubble without pressure, because she really feels that she's doing this for herself, and she's taking full ownership over her skating."
Liu, Weir added, "has found a way to completely relax into competition. … She doesn't feel like her life is on the line anymore when she skates, so she's able to put a lot of that pressure that many athletes feel down."
"I'm so excited," Liu recently said. "'Cause, you know, last Olympics was COVID Olympics and really different. I had a lot of fun at that one, but everyone's saying, 'Listen, that one's nothing compared to what a real Olympics is like.' So all this big talk, y'all better show up and show out in Milan."
Isabeau Levito
Levito fell in love with figure skating the way so many other young girls did, by watching the Olympics. In her case, she was three years old and watching the 2010 Vancouver Games when she decided to test the ice herself. Within a few years, she was a junior champion, and by 2023, she'd claimed the United States championship.
"I call her that skater in the snow globe. She is that quintessential ballerina that was put on ice," Lipinski said. "She brings elegance and grace and charm and she is a perfectionist. As beautiful and sparkly are her costumes, underneath it all is desire and will."
Levito is neither as outgoing as Glenn nor as exuberant as Liu, but instead chooses a more delicate, measured path on the ice, one that's seen her achieve podiums throughout her career.
"She is one of those skaters that can tell you, and count on one hand, how many times she's fallen that week, because she is so driven and striving for perfection," Weir said.
In Milan Cortina, she'll be skating to the music of Sophia Loren, a tribute to the Italian film legend and a nod to her own Italian and Milanese heritage.
"Honestly, I am just so excited and stoked about the (Olympic) village," Levito said after her bronze medal at the U.S. championships. "I see TikToks, I see videos, I see articles about it, and I hear about it firsthand, but I just am so excited about that. I just know it'll be the time of my life."
"The big three, they couldn't be more different even though they're all competing in the same sport," Weir said. "That makes it really exciting for an audience, because there's going to be someone for everyone to root for."
"We are all individual artists, and we are all just doing the best that we can and not trying to fit into any shape or mold that anyone tries to put us into," Glenn said. "I think that is what has brought us back into such a successful group of women in figure skating."
Team figure skating begins on the first official day of the Olympics, Feb. 6. The women will start their individual short routines 11 days later, with medals to be awarded on Feb. 19. And then we'll see if hope can become hardware.