Figure skater Isabeau Levito is making her Olympic debut at the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.
The 18-year-old former U.S. National Champion is one-third of Team USA’s “Blade Angels” and is aiming to bring home gold after the U.S. was shut out of the women’s singles competition in Beijing in 2022. (Russia’s Anna Shcherbakova and Alexandra Trusova won the gold and silver medals, respectively, in 2022, while Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto took home the bronze.)
“I essentially have been skating my whole life,” she told Bustle in February 2026. “It’s just always been a part of me.”
She added, “When I was 10, I landed a double axel. A lot of people get stuck at that trick and quit and move on with their life. When I finally landed it, which took me longer than my other jumps, that’s when I began to gain faith in myself. I finally thought, ‘Oh, wow, I might actually go somewhere with this.’”
Levito’s love of old-school Hollywood glamour has become her signature, as she has styled past routines around iconic movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren.
Keep scrolling for more on Levito’s background and what to expect from her at the 2026 Winter Games.
Isabeau Levito Started Skating at Age 3
Isabeau Levito’s mother, Chiara Garberi Levito, enrolled her in skating classes when she was only 3 years old to help improve her balance.
Isabeau excelled at the junior level by winning the 2022 World Junior Championship in Tallinn, Estonia, before clinching her first U.S. Figure Skating Championship in San Jose, California, in January 2023.
Since then, she won the 2024 World silver medal and has become a five-time ISU Challenger Series medalist.
“When I was young, I was very much known for not showing my nerves somehow. Not in a way that I was just so relaxed backstage, but in a way that I just got on the ice and did my job and I would just never mess up,” Isabeau told Olympics.com in 2025. “And then at some point along the way I kind of lost that.”
She continued, “It became less of going out and running my program that I do every single day in practice, and more of, ‘If I make this mistake, who will I disappoint? How many people are going to be sad? How many people are going to be upset? Am I going to lose my spot in this person’s eyes? I’m going to lose my spot in my country and I’m going to lose my chance, my opportunity’. And then all of that just kind of… it kills you.”
Isabeau credited her “Stars On Ice” touring schedule in 2025 with helping her rediscover her passion for the sport.
Isabeau Levito’s Idol Is a Russian Figure Skating Icon
Isabeau Levito has often mentioned two-time Olympic silver medalist, Evgenia Medvedeva, as “the first figure skater who amazed” her.
“I was probably about ten years old at the time, and I recall going to the skating rink and watching her performance on my mother’s phone,” Isabeau told FS Gossip in 2022.
The Mount Holly, New Jersey, native was particularly drawn to Medvedeva because the Russian athlete so clearly “felt what she was skating.”
“There are people who live in music, and their movements on the ice are connected with this,” she noted. “It is impossible to express in words, but I heard Medvedeva in her performance, she seemed to have taken me to her on the ice.”
Isabeau went on, “I admire the way she pulled herself together then and made all the jumps, not forgetting about the story in the program. It was perfection, though no one ever achieves the ideal.So she is a real inspiration for me. I realized then that I want to skate the same, and I will try to achieve this.”
Isabeau Levito Is Inspired By Hollywood Glamour
Isabeau Levito has drawn on classic Hollywood glamour for many of her routines. Her most successful program thus far was her tribute to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where she danced to “Moon River” in a costume inspired by Audrey Hepburn’s iconic black dress from the 1961 movie.
“I love playing characters,” Isabeau told Olympics.com in October 2025. “It’s one of my favorite things about skating is being able to go on the ice and perform a program and be able to play a character and a part without it being my identity.”
She continued, “When I do my Sophia Loren short program, I’m portraying Sophia Loren, no one’s saying, ‘Oh, that’s Isabeau’s personality’. That’s Sophia Loren. When I’m doing Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ‘That’s Audrey Hepburn, that’s not Isabeau.’ So, I get to try on all these characters and have fun skating as them.”
Isabeau is changing things up for her Winter Games routines in Milan and Cortina, as she performs a tribute to Italian screen goddess Loren with a short program set to “Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo.” Levito’s free skate will feature the music of Academy Award-winning 1988 coming-of-age comedy Cinema Paradiso.
“So many people were telling me to please keep Breakfast at Tiffany’s for a short program this year. Especially on tour, every meet-and-greet, I would hear it,” Isabeau clarified. “But I didn’t want to keep the exact same program because I didn’t want to just reuse it going into the Olympics.”
Isabeau Levito’s Fans Call Her ‘Tinkerbeau’
Isabeau Levito has a dedicated fanbase via social media who affectionately refer to her as “Tinkerbeau” due to her resemblance to Tinkerbell from Peter Pan.
“Everyone on Twitter calls me Tinkerbeau, like my name [plus] Beau,” she beamed to Olympics.com in 2025.
She cheerfully went on, “I’m Tinkerbeau because I kind of look like Tinkerbell and I love that. I love it! I feel very cute.”
Isabeau Levito Has Another Passion Besides Figure Skating
When she’s not on the ice, Isabeau Levito is most likely reading a good book. A September 2023 profile by U.S. Figure Skating namechecked All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid as a few of her favorites.
“The fact [is] that you can live a hundred, a thousand, a million different lives in your lifetime through reading,” Isabeau said at the time. “For me, it’s like a guide. There are always things you can take out of books.”
Isabeau pointed out that her bookshelves are filled with many different genres but she mostly sticks to female authors.
“Maybe it says something … maybe it doesn’t,” she quipped. “I have very few books on my shelves written by men.”
Isabeau Levito Is One of the ‘Blade Angels’
Isabeau Levito comes to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina as one-third of Team USA’s “Blade Angels” alongside Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu.
Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton has pinpointed Isabeau as someone to “keep an eye on” at the Winter Games this year.
“[She’s] 18 years old, first[-time] Olympian from Mount Holly, New Jersey,” Hamilton told his Instagram followers in February 2026.
He described Isabeau as a “stunningly beautiful, artistic skater” whose “artistic quality” is unmatched among her Olympics competitors.
“She’s someone, I say basically, ‘Yeah, I’d pay money to see her skate.’ And I would,’” Hamilton declared. “She’s someone to watch out for in these Winter Olympic Games because her performances are unforgettable.”
