ST. LOUIS, Missouri — This was going to be Isabeau Levito’s Olympic quadrennium, a four-year span in which she would become the leading lady of U.S. Figure Skating and smoothly glide past markers on the way to the 2026 Winter Games in her mother’s hometown of Milan.

After all, Levito, now age 18, had made the podium in her senior national debut four years ago, winning bronze after taking second in the free skate. At that point, she was below the Olympic age minimum.

By five months after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, all three women on the U.S. team in China had retired from competition.

A year later, Levito won the short program and the free skate at the 2023 U.S. Championships, seemingly establishing her national dominion with her balletic skating.

“She was having her moment, and since then she has been up and down,” said Adam Rippon, 2018 Olympic team event bronze medalist and an NBC contributor.

By last season, when a foot injury kept her from nationals, Levito was worried she had become the forgotten woman on the U.S. scene, the one out of the spotlight.

Alysa Liu, one of the 2022 Olympians, stunningly had come out of retirement to write an incandescent comeback story, one that included the 2025 world title.

Amber Glenn finally began to shake the demons who took up too much space in her head, finding the confidence to win the last two U.S. titles and a Grand Prix title.

And Levito suddenly had become No. 3, her jumps consistently dinged for under-rotations.

All three skated wonderfully on the first night in the U.S. Championships short program. This was as good as it gets.

And Levito is third going into the free skate.

Glenn (83.05 points) and Liu (81.11) posted the two highest short program scores ever at a national event, topping the 79.40 set by Bradie Tennell at the 2021 championships.

Levito, with 75.72, was closer to fourth place Sarah Everhardt (71.10) than she was to Liu.

“Isabeau was supposed to be the next one, the only one, but now we have three,” Rippon said. “She is struggling a little and all of a sudden she’s not the No. 1 girl anymore, and that amplifies her problem.

“Yes, she loses some points on jumps. But what she does well, she does very well.”

She jumps consistently if not beautifully, spins well and presents herself very well, with an air of old Hollywood and a diva demeanor she said has been hers since childhood. Levito’s top component score this season is best among U.S. women in international competition.

Anyone would be wise not to count her out.

After a raggedy third-place performance at the 2024 Nationals, she finished second at the world championships two months later. After withdrawing from last year’s nationals due to the foot injury, she took fourth at worlds.

Glenn, Liu and Levito seem a cinch to earn the three U.S. places in women’s singles for Milan.

It’s just that the order isn’t what seemed expected three years ago.

“I've had some ups and downs injury-wise and whatnot,” Levito said. “But I feel like I'm in a really good place right now, and I'm really happy sharing (the podium) with these two great athletes. I think right now it's a really, really good time for us to be where we are in our skating and careers.”

Theirs has been a respectful and enjoyable rivalry.

“I just think that we are all trying to lift each other up, and in doing so, it just pushes people to the top,” Glenn said.

This season and the two previous have been the most successful period for U.S. women since the Michelle Kwan era, when Kwan (five times world champion and two-time Olympic medalist from 1996 through 2003), Tara Lipinski (1998 Olympic champion) and Sasha Cohen (2006 Olympic silver medalist and three-time world medalist) were the stars.

“I mean, these current kids are good, you know, these kids are really good,” said Phillip DiGuglielmo, who coaches Liu. “And we want nationals to be this good, right?”

None of the top four had a single negative score among the aggregate 252 grades of execution they received for the seven elements in the short program. The quality was stunning.

Levito lacked the jump firepower of Glenn, with her huge triple Axel, and Liu, with her triple Lutz-triple loop combination in the bonus part (second half) of the program. And this time, Levito’s component scores also were lower than those of Liu and Glenn.

“Isabeau is the toughest, hardest worker,” Glenn said. “There’s no doubt she’s going to go out there and do her damn job, no matter what it is. And she does it with the most grace I’ve ever seen.”

That’s not easy when your perspective no longer is the one from the top.

Philip Hersh, who has covered figure skating at every Winter Olympics since 1980, is a special contributor to NBCOlympics.com.