Amber Glenn capped her breakout 2024 by incomes the most important title for a U.S. girls’s singles determine skater since 2010.
Glenn, 25, gained the Grand Prix Final, probably the most unique occasion in determine skating, over the remainder of the world’s top-ranked girls (all 5 from Japan).
Fellow Americans Ilia Malinin and ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates later repeated as Grand Prix Final champions. The U.S. gained three of the 4 Grand Prix Final titles for the primary time.
Grand Prix Final highlights air Sunday at 4:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
GRAND PRIX FINAL: Full Results
Glenn had the best rating in Friday’s quick program and Saturday’s free skate, touchdown a triple Axel on each days. Glenn tallied 212.07 whole factors, prevailing by 3.22 over 19-year-old Mone Chiba.
Glenn made two minor leaping errors in Saturday’s free (doubling a deliberate triple Salchow and two-footing the touchdown of a triple flip). As she got here off the ice, she instructed coach Damon Allen that her again harm. On Friday, she felt she pinched a rib within the quick program.
“I’ve not felt my finest being right here,” Glenn mentioned later Saturday. “So, sadly, it wasn’t a skate to the place I used to be so excited — oh my gosh, smiling. I used to be there to do a job, and I did that to the most effective of my potential. I might not say it was fairly a efficiency, extra of an indication of talent.”
Three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto was third, her first defeat in top-level competitors for the reason that 2022 Grand Prix Final.
Glenn grew to become the primary American girl since Alissa Czisny in 2010 to win the Grand Prix Final, the game’s third-most prestigious occasion after the Olympics and World Championships. The final American girl to win worlds was Kimmie Meissner in 2006. The final to win the Olympics was Sarah Hughes in 2002.
Glenn additionally grew to become the third U.S. girl to win two Grand Prix common season occasions plus the Final in a single season after Michelle Kwan (1995-96, the primary Grand Prix season) and Sasha Cohen (2002-03).
Glenn has gained all 4 of her competitions this season — the primary 4 worldwide victories of her profession on any stage. She is the oldest girl to win the Grand Prix Final since Russian Irina Slutskaya in 2004.
“I’m exhausted,” she mentioned in a rinkside interview shortly after the free skate. “It has been a whirlwind of a season. I form of struggled with this imposter syndrome. Oh, no, no, I’m not profitable, that’s not me. I’m simply glad my arduous work is lastly displaying.”
Glenn’s enchancment may be attributed partly to neurotherapy over the offseason.
And to elevated consistency together with her trademark ingredient, the triple Axel, the toughest soar being carried out in senior girls’s worldwide occasions to this point this season. Glenn is the one girl to land a clear triple this senior Grand Prix season, and he or she has carried out so in any respect of her competitions total.
Recently, she has been instructed the phrases “calm beast” earlier than skating.
“One of the coaches at my (Colorado Springs) rink instructed me, once I was skating very well in the future, that I appeared like a relaxed beast,” Glenn mentioned. “So being calm and never speeding all the things, but in addition having that energy.”
Glenn started 2024 by profitable her first senior U.S. title in her ninth attempt. That marked her second victory since profitable the 2014 U.S. junior title (the opposite a regional qualifier in 2018).
She was second on the 2021 U.S. Championships, placing her in rivalry to make the three-woman Olympic group in 2022.
But she positioned 14th within the quick program on the 2022 U.S. Championships, then discovered she had COVD-19 and withdrew earlier than the free skate. That was considered one of a string of obstacles for Glenn, who additionally handled concussions in 2020 and 2023.
Come 2026, she will be able to develop into the oldest U.S. Olympic girls’s singles skater in 98 years.
Before that, she is going to defend her nationwide title in late January in Wichita, Kansas. After nationals, three girls will probably be named to the group for March’s world championships. At final March’s worlds, Glenn positioned tenth with errors on her final 4 leaping passes in her free skate.
Later Saturday, Malinin grew to become the second American males’s singles skater to win a number of Grand Prix Finals after 2022 Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen.
Malinin defends his title at Grand Prix Final
Despite being outscored by Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama within the free skate, Ilia Malinin’s mixed rating of 292.12 helped him develop into the second American males’s singles skater to win a number of Grand Prix Finals after Nathan Chen.
He grew to become the primary skater to land all six varieties of quadruple jumps in a single program: Axel, flip, Lutz, loop, Salchow and toe loop, although it was not a clear skate. He fell on considered one of his two quad Lutz makes an attempt and had two of his landed quads judged as under-rotated. All seven leaping passes acquired detrimental grades of execution.
Runner-up Yuma Kagiyama outscored Malinin within the free skate.
“I had this concept and this purpose that I needed to realize right here, and I used to be in a position to blow it out of the park,” Malinin mentioned. He added later, “My predominant purpose was to only do that new ingredient format simply to see how I can handle it for the long run competitions.”
Malinin, who turned 20 final Monday, has gained all seven of his competitions over the past 12 months.
Chock and Bates grew to become the primary repeat Grand Prix Final ice dance champions since Canadians Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje in 2015.
They posted the best whole rating this season — 219.85 — and prevailed by 13.74 factors over Italians Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri. That’s the second-largest margin of victory in a Grand Prix Final ice dance beneath a 21-year-old scoring system after the primary of Weaver and Poje’s titles in 2014 and the
Chock and Bates gained their sixth Grand Prix Final medal total — the primary got here in 2014 — to tie the ice dance document. Olympic ice dance gold medalists Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir and Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat additionally gained six Grand Prix Final medals.
Chock and Bates have gained 10 of their 11 competitions for the reason that begin of 2023, together with two world titles.
How to observe the 2024-25 determine skating season on NBC Sports and Peacock.
