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

Weeks before she had made the team, South Jersey figure skater Isabeau Levito was confidently saying, “when I go to the Olympics ...”

Levito, 18, who lives and trains in Mount Laurel, wasn’t being cocky. She knew; she had done the math.

Qualifying for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics was “definitely a realistic goal for me for the past three years,” said Levito, the 2023 U.S. champion and 2024 world silver medalist. “But I felt like I had to prove myself again after missing a bit of last season with an injury.

“But when the season was going the way it was going, score-wise, internationally, I just had to skate the way I can skate at nationals and have it solidified.”

Indeed, with two clean programs and the bronze medal at the 2026 U.S. Figure Skating Championships earlier this month, combined with strong results throughout the season and last year, that spot was hers.

So when she met with Justin Dillon, chief high performance officer for U.S. Figure Skating, who told her reality show-style that she was on the team, Levito seemed happy but not surprised. Her head coach, Yulia Kuznetsova, however, was flooded with tears.

“This is a huge dream for Yulia,” Levito said.

Kuznetsova skated pairs while growing up in Russia and later in Disney on Ice, where she performed with her now-husband and another of Levito’s coaches, Slava Kuznetsov. But she never made it to that top frozen stage — until now as a coach.

Kuznetsova also knew it was within reach. But the duo knew what they needed to do.

They opted this season for a triple flip combination instead of a triple Lutz. They thought the flip had a better chance of being called clean. (This worked out, but her individual triple Lutz also has been getting better results lately.)

“Next season, I really want to switch things around and do new things and have more fun with it,” Levito said, “because this season it was a matter of doing all the skills that I honed, all the things that are the most comfortable and the most reliable. But next season, let’s just start risking things.”

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

First, there’s that big trip to her mother’s hometown, Milan, where her grandmother and other relatives still live and where she’ll compete with and against her friends: the other American women, Amber Glenn and Alysa Liu, and many international skaters.

She’s looking forward to being fully immersed in the Olympic experience and having her family see her skate. The opening ceremony is set for Feb. 6.

“I am going to run this [Olympic] village,” she said. “This is going to be so fun.”

She’s read about the village and watched TikToks from the Summer Games.

“But I really have no idea what the Olympic Village is going to look like. That’s why I’m so excited to get there and explore it,” she said.

Most of the ice sports, including figure skating, will be in Milan. The snow and sliding sports, plus curling, will be 250 miles away in Cortina and other mountain regions. This Olympics will be held in six villages across northern Italy.

Before nationals, Levito had a lot of obligations. There were days when film crews came into the rink and stayed all day, cutting into her training time.

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

The results were viral social media videos for sponsors such as Red Bull (she compares skills with a hockey player) and Everlane (she answers rapid-fire questions while getting ready to get on the ice at the Igloo in Mount Laurel).

Now she’s back to a more typical schedule of skating for hours every day.

“Everything’s exactly the same,” she said of her days on the ice. “What’s different, though, is how exciting it is going to the rink every day, being that I’m actually training for the Olympics right now.”

Does Olympic prep include getting a tattoo of the rings, as so many athletes do?

“I just don’t know if I would get a tattoo in general,” Levito said. “I think I’m going to start with the Olympic necklace,” which many Olympians sport.

“If I did get a tattoo, it would be in such a hidden place, and it would be so tiny and microscopic. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘If that’s the circumstances I would get a tattoo under, maybe I should think about it for a while.’”

Meanwhile, time is ticking, meaning she needs to shop for some formal dresses to wear at Olympic banquets and choose things to pack for any downtime.

Levito said she likely will bring a couple of books as well as her bedazzling kit. Besides all the sparkles she wears on the ice, she enjoys adding rhinestones to her various makeup cases and a comb.

“It’s so soothing,” she said.

There is a lot of talk of extra bling: The three American women have a good chance of earning medals at the Olympics. But Levito isn’t thinking about that.

“The village is what I’m focused on,” she said. “And obviously skating my best, but I can already feel like I will.”

The pressure is also off a bit. With Glenn winning her third consecutive national title and Liu as the reigning world champion, Levito feels she’s less in the spotlight than she was a couple of years ago, when she won nationals and the silver medal at worlds.

But it’s all good.

“Honestly to me right now my life feels like perfect,” she said. “Dare I say I love everything that’s in my life, like personal life, and just like my goals that I’ve achieved, whether I’m under the radar or not?

“I’m just so happy right now. I feel like I really achieved my dream life that I had in mind maybe five or some years ago. I feel like I’m really living what I was wishing for or envisioning for myself, so I’m just beyond proud.”