This is the moment 18-year-old South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito has been waiting for: The Olympics

Even as tiny child in her car seat, Isabeau Levito talked about how much she wanted to go to the Olympics.

At 3, she had watched the 2010 Winter Games on TV and was charmed by the figure skating, mimicking Coatesville native Johnny Weir’s movements on the screen. Her mother, Chiara Garberi, thought they’d try skating and brought her to the Igloo Ice Rink in Mount Laurel. Levito quickly took to it.

The next year, she skated in her first event, the Philadelphia Areas Figure Skating Competition. She won. It was the first of many victories as she moved up the levels.

About five years ago, the 2023 U.S. champion said, it all came into focus. The Olympics could be a reality, and the 2026 Games in Milan and Cortina could be her Games.

With Italy in her sights, both of her programs this year were set to Italian music. The short is to a compilation of sassy songs from Sophia Loren movies. The free skate, or long program, is to “Cinema Paradiso” by Ennio Morricone.

In January, at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis, that goal became a reality. She skated two clean programs with her signature beautiful footwork and spins and won the bronze medal.

“Isabeau Levito is the skater in the snow globe,” NBC commentator and 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski said on the Today show.

Two days after she competed at nationals, Levito was named to the Olympic team.

“The Olympics is [always] in the back of your mind,” Levito said last month. “Because, technically, everything gets you there — slowly. But the next stop is actually the Olympics. It’s insane."

Not that she has any plans to retire after this season. Levito said she already is looking forward to the offseason, when she can work on some of the hardest jumps. This season was all about consistency and her best elements.

But as she grew up, these Olympics seemed like the Games to aim for. Her mother grew up in Milan. Her grandmother and other relatives still live there. She knew she would be 18 and would have a few years as a senior competitor under her belt.

Except for some minor bumps in the plans, including an injury that took her out for much of last season, Levito’s timeline worked out. All along the way, her elegant skating earned her medals at almost every important event leading up to this month’s Olympics.

» READ MORE: At 18, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito is heading to the Olympics: ‘I feel like I really achieved my dream life’

Born in Philadelphia, Levito grew up in Mount Holly and now lives closer to the rink in Mount Laurel, which has been her second home for nearly her entire life.

She was named after Michelle Pfeiffer’s character in Ladyhawke, her mother’s favorite movie.

“As a young, young kid, I was like, ‘Why is this my name?’” Levito said. “I always have to explain it.”

The pronunciation is “ease-a-bow,” Levito said, but she’s fine with people calling her “izz-a-bow.”

She never had to move away from South Jersey to train (“We love Wawa” and she doesn’t love pumping gas, she told Team USA).

She has had the same coach — Yulia Kuznetsova — the whole time. She also works with Kuznetsova’s husband, Slava Kuznetsov, as well as Otar Japaridze, a former Georgian ice dancer, who competed in those 2010 Olympics that caught Levito’s attention. (Japaridze‘s partner was Allison Reed, who now skates with Saulius Ambrulevicius and finished sixth in ice dance, representing Lithuania.)

“I have a really, really good coaching team,” Levito said, “they kind of hit all the spots with me, and I’ve been working with them since the very beginning. I feel like they made me such a well-rounded skater.”

In 2018, at just 10, Levito won her first national championship, at the juvenile level. That’s the beginning of the competitive track, and most skaters are landing all double jumps and some triples.

The next year, she won silver in intermediate.

In 2020, she was one of the top two skaters in the eastern sectional at the novice level, so she was invited to skate in juniors at nationals. Most skaters who do that don’t place and need to change their programs midseason to accommodate different requirements. But Levito earned silver that year as well.

» READ MORE: South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito named to the U.S. Winter Olympic team going to Milan, Italy

In 2021, she won junior.

After that, she competed as a senior. Her first year, she earned the bronze medal at nationals but, at 14, was too young to make the Olympic team. (That year, both of her 2026 Olympic teammates had to sit out nationals because they had COVID-19. Alysa Liu already was a two-time national champion, so she made the team anyway. Amber Glenn had been the silver medalist the year before, but she was not chosen.)

Instead, Levito was sent to the World Junior Championships — which she won.

Over the years, she won six Grand Prix series medals, including the silver at the Grand Prix Final in 2022 and the gold at the Grand Prix of France in 2023. She also was the 2024 World Figure Skating Championships silver medalist.

When she’s not on the ice, she’s decorating her apartment, reading, crocheting, bedazzling her makeup cases, and taking care of her cat.

» READ MORE: South Jersey’s Isabeau Levito wins bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a clean program

She graduated from her online high school last year and wants to go to college. But after leaving traditional school in fourth grade, she’s had enough of online learning.

“I wouldn’t want to do [college] online,” Levito said last March. “I would want to go in person.”

But the run-up to the Olympics has been extra busy.

“I‘m aware that if I want to go to university next year, I need to do the SATs, the college admissions,” she said in December. “So it makes me think that maybe I might wait another year.”

But first comes her Olympic debut. There is talk that the U.S. women — who named themselves Blade Angels — could sweep the podium.

The three are good friends. In December, Liu called Levito “the wittiest person I ever met.”

Glenn is the three-time U.S. champion and 2024 Grand Prix Final champion. Along with her two national wins, Liu is the reigning world and Grand Prix Final champion.

» READ MORE: Competitors are not always rivals. Just ask the top American women’s figure skaters, Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn.

But they’re not the only stars. The Japanese team includes three-time world champion and 2022 Olympic bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto. Her two teammates also are serious contenders.

Another contender is Adeliia Petrosian, from Russia, who is the only woman competing who is likely to attempt quadruple jumps.

But Levito has her eye on the prize, which means enjoying the Olympics to the fullest.

“And obviously skating my best,” she said, “but I can already feel like I will. So that’s really what I’m really striving for.”

Women’s short program:Tuesday, Groups 1 and 2, 12:45 p.m. on USA and Peacock. Groups 3, 4, and 5, 2:40 p.m. on NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) and Peacock. (Levito will skate in Group 4 or 5.)

Women’s free skate: Thursday, 1 p.m., on NBC and Peacock, 1:30 p.m. on USA.