Alysa Liu leads the 'Blade Angels' quest for gold

MILAN — When the first figure skater enters their starting pose in the final half of the women’s single skating event Thursday night, American Alysa Liu will be best positioned to bring home a medal for the United States.

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Liu, 20, is in third place entering Thursday’s free skate after scoring a 76.59 in her short program Tuesday. Four years after retiring from the sport altogether — and two years after returning — Liu is now within jumping distance of gold.

While the spotlight has been at times unforgiving for athletes during the Milan Cortina Games, one of Liu’s coaches, Phillip DiGuglielmo, expects her to enjoy the experience.

“She really hates that question, ‘Why don't you get nervous?’” DiGuglielmo told NBC News before the Olympics. “She doesn’t know. She just doesn’t.”

He added: “When she skates, and she pulls you out there, she has begun to understand that the audience sends her like this weird energy, this crazy psychic power that she then focuses and puts into even more amazing performance.”

Liu’s skate on Thursday will come at the end of a winding road, one that began with her taking up figure skating early in life, competing in Beijing in 2022, walking away that same year, and only coming back when she could exert more control over her career.

And Liu has been adamant that she won’t judge her success on how high she ultimately finishes Thursday.

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“My goal is just to do my program and share my story,” Liu said after her short program Tuesday.

DiGuglielmo said: “With her now, the journey is not about the outcome. The journey is about her exploring who she is as an athlete, as a person and as an artist.”

Liu’s personal goals stand in contrast to the external pressure that could be projected on her Thursday, as she’s the American skater with the best chance to finish on the podium.

Amber Glenn, the winner of three straight U.S. championships, enters the free skate in 13th place after an invalid element in Tuesday’s short program severely hurt her score.

“I just lost focus, wasn’t feeling good,” an emotional Glenn told NBC Sports’ Andrea Joyce immediately following Tuesday’s skate. “Just disbelief. I did the hard stuff.”

Speaking with reporters after practice Wednesday, Glenn said it wasn’t nerves that got to her in the short program, simply that she lost balance before what was supposed to be a triple loop turned into a double. Glenn added that she still hopes to get enjoyment out of her performance Thursday, even if a medal appears to be out of reach.

“The devastation [Tuesday] didn’t come from ‘Oh, I lost my chance at a medal. Oh, I lost my chance at a medal,’” Glenn told reporters. “I was devastated that I lost the happiness and the enjoyment that I wanted to have out there on the ice to say, like, I fought for everything I did, everything I could, and that’s what I truly wanted, and that’s what I missed out on. So that’s just what I’m hoping to do [Thursday].”

The wild card among the "Blade Angels" is Isabeau Levito, the 18-year-old competing in her first Olympics, who enters the free skate in eighth place. It would take another surprise or two for Levito to make the podium, but the ice in Milan has been especially unpredictable so far. Mikhail Shaidorov, the male figure skater from Kazakhstan who won gold, was sixth after the short program.

“I felt very good out there, I feel very well trained, so I was able to enjoy the moment,” Levito told NBC News after her short program.

She added, about the attention on her and the other skaters: “I don’t feel like there’s a lot of attention on me. I feel very happy to be here, excited to be here, and I love the atmosphere here. I’ve been enjoying it a lot.”