The ‘Blade Angels’ are the three U.S. women’s singles figure skaters at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The group consists of Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito.
The name ‘Blade Angels’ was created by mashing up the movie titles ‘Blades of Glory’ and ‘Charlie’s Angels.’
All three skaters are considered strong contenders to win an individual medal at the Olympics.
The trio is known for their close friendship and supportive camaraderie in a competitive sport.

MILAN — It’s time for the ‘Blade Angels’ of the United States of America to take the figure skating ice.

Some of the most popular Team USA athletes at the 2026 Winter Olympics − Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito − open their pursuit for individual gold with women’s short program on Tuesday, Feb. 17. Not only are they some of the best skaters in the world, but they have also captivated the nation for their pure appreciation and love for each other, which features plenty of fun and chaos sprinkled in.

So what exactly is the story of the ‘Blade Angels’? It’s a friendship that has been building for years, and is flourishing in the Olympic spotlight.

Who are the ‘Blade Angels’?

The ‘Blade Angels’ are the three U.S. women’s singles figure skaters at the Olympics: Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito.

Why are they called the ‘Blade Angels’?

When the three were selected for the Olympic team in January, they were trying to come up with a team name. At first, Liu suggest ‘Blades of Glory,’ since she had just watched the 2007 figure skating comedy film starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder.

The suggestion then got tweaked to ‘Babes of Glory,’ but there were copyright fears. Levito liked the ‘Powerpuff Girls,’ in reference to the animated show, but there were issues with that, too. Finally, Liu came up with ‘Blade Angels,’ mashing up ‘Blades of Glory’ and ‘Charlie’s Angels.’

‘I came up with a ton of like different ideas,’ Liu said in Milan. ”Blade Angels’ was my idea. There was a vote and everybody liked it.’

What makes the ‘Blade Angels’ so special?

When you get an introduction from Taylor Swift, you know it’s a big deal.

They aren’t just known for their friendship, either. All three skaters have a great chance of snapping Team USA’s 20-year skid without an Olympic medal in women’s singles. They are all capable of winning gold, too. The ‘Blade Angels’ have been stacking up accolades in recent years:

Amber Glenn: 2026 Winter Olympics team event gold medalist; 2024, 2025 and 2026 U.S. champion; 2024 Grand Prix Final champion; 2024 and 2025 Cup of China champion
Alysa Liu: 2026 Winter Olympics team event gold medalist; 2025 world champion; 2025 Grand Prix Final champion; 2025 Skate America champion; 2019, 2020 U.S. champion
Isabeau Levito: 2023 U.S. champion; 2023 Grand Prix of France champion

‘Blade Angels’ love

What makes this group so special is not just the talent, but also the camaraderie. They all have love and appreciation for each other, all wanting to share the spotlight together rather than trying to find glory for themselves, ‘like a comfort for each other,’ Glenn said. It’s a refreshing sight in a sport where that always hasn’t been the case.

‘We’re all such strong skaters, and we have such great strengths, and I really appreciate that we get to connect,’ Levito said. ‘It’s a really good environment to be in.’

Glenn, 26, has adopted the big sister role of the trio as Liu is 20 and Levito is 18. She said she is proud to see them grow from young girls to ‘incredible women.’ They’re always laughing together, and the friendship is what helps them thrive on the ice.

‘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 just group of women in figure skating.’

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MILAN – The days have been a whirlwind, from arrival to a first practice, photo shoots, pin exchanges, an interview with Sesame Street’s Elmo, round-robin games, attending other events, soaking up every experience.

Now comes the pressure part of participating in the 2026 Winter Olympics. The USA men’s hockey team heads into its first elimination game on Feb. 18 both buoyed and weighted by expectations to come home with a gold medal. The Americans emerged from the preliminary round 3-0, and after earning a two-day break between games, are eager to prove what they can do when results mean stay or go.

‘It’s nerve wracking, it is,’ Dylan Larkin said. ‘I think that’s what brings out the best in guys. I’m excited for it. Every play, every puck is going to matter.’

When Larkin was speaking after the USA’s practice on Feb. 17 at the Milan Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena’s practice rink, the USA was waiting to find out who it will play: the winner of the evening’s game against Sweden and Latvia.

But as good teams tend to do, the focus was on how the USA needs to play. USA personnel has spoken of being an ‘unfinished product’ and that doesn’t change regardless of the opponent.

‘I don’t know that we ever arrive,’ coach Mike Sullivan said. ‘I think that’s the greatest thing about our sport. We’re always striving to become a better version of ourselves every day. I don’t think you ever arrive. And that’s part of it. We’re going to try to evolve every day that we’re together.’

The USA beat Latvia, Denmark and Germany in the preliminary round to earn a bye into the quarterfinals. They had a day off Feb. 16, much needed after playing three times in four days, all at 9:10 p.m. local start times.

‘I think I finally got used to it by that third game,’ Zach Werenski said. ‘I started to feel a lot better with the timing. It’s a long day playing at 9 p.m., I’m just not used to it. I was pretty tired at night time, slept good. I feel a lot better today and I’m excited for tomorrow.’

USA has as deep a team as there is at the tournament, with arguably the best depth of any team in goal. Connor Hellebuyck has played two games, Jeremy Swayman the other and Jake Oettinger is on standby. Hellebuyck is the projected starter; asked a question focused on Hellebuyck’s up-and-down play this season, Sullivan smiled and replied, ‘I don’t worry about any of our goalies.’

Nor, for that matter, the skaters. USA’s plus-11 goal differential in round-robin play was second only to Canada’s plus-17. Of the 17 skaters who appeared in all three preliminary games, everyone has at least a point. Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk lead the team with five points and Matthews, the captain, with three goals.

‘I think everybody’s starting to peak at the right time, which is good,’ Tkachuk said.

The USA looks back on its game with Germany as a jumping off point for the quarterfinals.

‘I feel like our last game was probably our best game for 60 minutes,’ Werenski said. ‘For us it’s just hard working, shift after shift. We have four lines that can go, we have seven D out there that can go as well. Just rolling them over, getting to our game, playing with our identity. Not straying away from it, just continuing to do that for 60 minutes.’

Over his 13 years serving as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, the responses became almost boilerplate, prefaced by safe words such as, “But what I can tell you is this,” before issuing a verbal essay that could roll on thoughtfully for several minutes.

And in those mid-term years of collective bargaining agreements, he’d typically dust this one off when asked, casually, what was going on:

“Everything looks calm on the surface of the water,” he’d say, “but you look underneath and the ducks are paddling very hard.”

Those words resonate a bit more now, with Clark set to resign from his post as the head of one of the nation’s strongest unions just weeks before long and contentious talks are set to begin on the third CBA he’s negotiated.

The timing is wild, for obvious reasons: Labor war is coming. Clark, if nothing else, was always a good soldier. And at 53, he’s got the battle scars of more than two decades spent at the MLBPA. Ostensibly, he’s entering his prime negotiating years as he squares off for a third time against MLB and its owners, a group that sometimes makes it easier on him to win the PR war.

Yet those frenetic paddles beneath the surface took a bit too much oxygen in his final years.

It was a lot: The MLBPA remains under federal investigation due to its role in a licensing company co-owned with the NFLPA and other sports unions. The investigation widened in 2025 to include Players Way, a youth baseball charitable arm of the union that has been the subject of whistleblower complaints of waste, nepotism and, ESPN reported, excessive union spending on international and domestic trips for Clark and other union employees.

An insurgent group within the MLBPA’s eight-player executive subcommittee launched something of a coup in 2024, aiming to remove Bruce Meyer as the union’s lead negotiator. The three players – Jack Flaherty, Ian Happ and Lucas Giolito – were voted off the executive subcommittee that December, seemingly a victory for Clark.

Yet this is not the 10-toes-down stance a union would prefer its leader adopt as it nears what is perhaps the most important negotiation since standing firm on a salary cap in 1994.

While the union has been, relatively, flush with cash thanks to its licensing agreements, it’s also not hard to get outflanked by MLB’s cabal of attorneys and negotiators. Harder still when facing ambivalence from within and potential legal liability externally.

This is hardly the stuff of Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr.

Those two truly made the MLBPA a powerhouse, Miller guiding it toward free agency and a landscape that altered global sports for the good. Fehr was immovable in his approach, becoming one of the public faces of the 1994 World Series cancellation yet more vindicated in the coming decades as baseball exploded into a $12 billion industry, with player movement almost as large a cottage industry as the games themselves.

Weiner, far more low-key than any other union head, kept the labor peace and perhaps was more respected by friend and foe alike than any executive director. His 2013 death due to an inoperable brain tumor was devastating to the union on both a personal and professional level.

And it was far from ideal conditions for Clark to take the gavel.

The 2011-12 CBA struck under Weiner and Clark was also suboptimal from the union’s standpoint, as it heralded the arrival of the qualifying offer, which forced acquiring teams to forfeit draft picks when signing free agents. Suddenly, in concert with changes to the amateur draft and introduction of bonus pools, teams treated those picks like treasures.

In the decade-plus since, the qualifying offer has dogged almost every free agent – first the handy but not-elite veteran, all the way to the near cream of the crop: Alex Bregman, Blake Snell and Pete Alonso all had to pass twice through free agency to duck it, while young stars like Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette aimed for opt-out laden deals this winter that will likely send them into free agency again, too.

Suddenly, the union was on its heels a bit and Manfred, now commissioner after years as MLB’s lead negotiator, kept on the offensive. In 2016-17, a lockout was narrowly averted, yet the union only nudged the luxury tax threshold from $189 million to $195 million, growing to $210 million over the five years.

Needless to say, that did not match the rate of revenue growth in that period.

Tony Clark’s MLBPA legacy

Meanwhile, owners established greater penalties for exceeding the tax, a governor on salaries for upper middle class clubs who might only occasionally bump their payroll into the penalty zone.

And the next two winters were ugly.

A glut of unsigned free agents forced the MLBPA to open a late-winter training camp for unsigned players. Former All-Stars loomed on the market past June, in order to avoid qualifying-offer restrictions.

And those who did sign late saw their performance suffer significantly.

The union could do nothing about it, except toss around a c-word – collusion – that hadn’t been heard for a while. And plot a holy war of their own for the next CBA.

Lest the union continue stacking Ls, Clark went and got his own pit bull – Bruce Meyer, a skilled litigator touting past experience with all four major men’s professional sports leagues.

Manfred responded with a lockout in December 2021. The union held firm into March, peace prevailed and the players might have clawed back an inch or two here or there.

Years later, at least eight teams are spending enough to exceed the luxury-tax threshold. Service-time suppression has been dealt with, and pre-arbitration superstars rewarded for elite performance.

Yet that deal seemed to come at the expense of the rank-and-file, which seemed to chafe at topline salaries remaining sky-high but veterans of lesser pedigree frozen out. In fairness, that may be an eternal reality with clubs hewing ever closer to “age curves” and other proprietary data.

Nonetheless, it’s all peanuts compared to what’s coming. It is hard to say Clark left the union in a better place, given the ground ceded and, now, a rudderless ship at a time the seas will grow much rougher.

Indeed, the paddling under the surface just got a lot more intense.

The U.S. men lost out on the Olympic gold in the team pursuit event of speed skating, with Italy edging them out in the gold medal race.

That wasn’t the only L the Italians handed out on Tuesday, Feb. 17, inside the Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Milan.

As Italy celebrated its ninth gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a member of its team pulled out Steph Curry’s iconic ‘night night’ celebration against Team USA.

Ouch. Yikes. What a tough look for the Americans.

Italy finished with a time of 3:39.20 in the finals, 4.51 seconds better than Team USA. The loss for the American team — made up of Casey Dawson, Ethan Cepuran and Emery Lehman — came after it defeated China by a whopping 7.93 seconds in the semifinals at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

It is the second loss of the Winter Olympics for the Americans against the Italians, as they lost to the home country in the quarterfinals on Sunday, finishing .97 seconds behind them (while still qualifying for the semifinals with the second-best time of the round).

The silver medal is an improvement from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics for the Americans after they won bronze four years ago in the event.

The silver medal for the Americans is Team USA’s 20th overall Olympic medal at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, and their ninth silver medal, which leads all countries. The Americans’ 20 medals are good for third place on the leaderboard, with Norway and Italy finishing out of the top three at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

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MILAN — The U.S. men won the Olympic silver medal in the men’s team pursuit in speed skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics Tuesday, Feb. 17.

The Americans fell to host nation Italy in the finals after beating China by a whopping 7.93 seconds in the semifinals. Italy defeated the Netherlands, the speed-skating powerhouse, in the other semifinal race.

The U.S. team featured Casey Dawson, Ethan Cepuran and Emery Lehman. Conor McDermott-Mostowy competed for the team in earlier rounds.

With the teams lined up on opposite sides of the 400-meter track in a head-to-head match, a trio of skaters representing each country glided around the track until completing eight laps. Italy clocked a time of 3:39.20, beating Team USA by 4.51 seconds.

China outdueled the Netherlands for bronze.

Since the team pursuit event was added to the Olympics in 2006, the U.S. men had medaled twice before – a silver in 2010 and a bronze in 2022.

Dawson, Cepuran and Lehman were part of that bronze-winning team in 2022.

Connecticut has replaced Houston as a No. 1 seed in the latest bracketology update.
Michigan, Arizona, and Duke join UConn on the top line with a combined 35-6 record in Quad 1 games.
Iowa State moved up to a top-rated No. 2 seed after key wins against Houston and Kansas.

Connecticut is in and Houston is out on the No. 1 line of the USA TODAY Sports latest bracketology after the Cougars fell 70-67 at Iowa State on Monday night.

The Huskies regained their grip on a No. 1 seed after rebounding from a road loss to St. John’s with Big East wins against Butler and Georgetown. UConn joins Michigan, Arizona and Duke. This foursome has separated itself from the pack thanks to a combined 35-6 record in Quad 1 games.

It’s a big week coming up for Michigan, which travels to Purdue on Tuesday night and then plays Duke in Washington, D.C., this weekend.

Iowa State takes over as the top-rated No. 2 seed after notching a second high-profile Big 12 win in a row, following this past Saturday’s 74-56 victory against Kansas.

Houston’s drop is one of several in the updated bracket involving some of the biggest names in the Power Five.

The Jayhawks slip to a No. 3 seed after the Iowa State loss erases some of the good vibes stemming from a torrid eight-game run that included wins against the Cyclones, Brigham Young, Texas Tech and Arizona.

Three losses in four games sent Michigan State to the No. 4 line. While two of those setbacks came against the Wolverines and Wisconsin, the Spartans’ résumé is dinged by an ugly road loss to Minnesota. The Gophers are 4-10 in Big Ten play and are 86th in the NET rankings.

March Madness last four in

Georgia, UCLA, Ohio State, TCU.

March Madness first four out

New Mexico, California, Missouri, Santa Clara.

NCAA tournament bids conference breakdown

Multi-bid leagues: Big Ten (11), SEC (10), ACC (8) Big 12 (8), Big East (3), West Coast (2), Mountain West (2).