Plano figure skater Amber Glenn made history in St. Louis on Wednesday, January 7, earning the highest women’s short-program score ever recorded at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

Glenn scored 83.05, breaking the previous high score of 81.11 set by her competitor Alysa Liu just minutes before she took the ice.

Going into the 2026 championships, the highest score ever recorded for a women’s short program had been 79.04.

Glenn, the two-time defending national champion, was the only skater to complete a triple Axel in her short program, considered the most difficult triple jump in women’s competition. She also landed a triple flip-triple toe combination and, in the bonus-rich second half, a triple loop.

But it was her choreographic step sequence at the end that blew the roof off the St. Louis ice arena. Wearing a maroon lace dress with beaded necklaces, Glenn skated to Madonna’s 1989 hit “Like a Prayer.”

At the lyric “Let the choir sing,” she invited the crowd into her dance party; they clapped, cheered, and boogied in their seats while she danced, spun, and slid across the ice to the song’s iconic chorus.

After the performance, she pumped her fist in the air as the audience rose to its feet and threw plushies on the ice (nearly hitting her).

“This was everything,” commentator Tara Lipinski said. “I have goosebumps. This is incredible skating. It’s blending what skating is all about: She is fearless. She is doing difficult elements, she’s not backing down. She does a triple Axel. She risks it, and then she skates with so much heart and beauty in her own style and own way.”

In a post-performance interview, Glenn said she'd felt her late grandmother, who passed nearly a year ago, helping her through the performance.

“I was so ecstatic and for some reason, I felt my grandma with me today," she told NBC's Andrea Joyce. "That meant a lot and I think she really got me through this. It was a whole new experience for me.”

Glenn, 26, was born and raised in Plano but has trained in Colorado Springs since 2022. Her father, Richard Glenn, a Plano police sergeant, was in the audience for her record-setting night in St. Louis.

Glenn and Liu seem like locks for the 2026 Olympic team, along with Isabeau Levito, who scored 75.72 for third place after the short program.

They will skate their four-minute free programs on Friday, January 9 to determine the national title.

The U.S. Figure Skating Olympic team heading to Milano-Cortina in February will be named on Sunday, January 11.

The U.S. Figure Skating Championships are taking place January 7-11 in St. Louis and are being live-streamed on Peacock and broadcast on NBC-affiliated stations such as the USA Network. Here’s more information about the schedule and how to watch.