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MILAN — Figure skating at these Winter Olympics has been full of dramatic twists. And Tuesday, the first night of the women’s competition, was no different: The U.S. women all qualified for Thursday’s medal event. But they are considerably farther behind than expected.

The “Blade Angels,” as they have been dubbed, began Tuesday night’s short program as the nation’s best hope at an individual medal in this event in two decades. But only two of them finished in the top 10.

That ups the pressure heading into Thursday’s free skate, which makes up the other half of their overall score.

Reigning world champion Alysa Liu stands in third place, behind Ami Nakai and Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.

Towards the very end of the night, Liu, 20, skated a powerful routine to Laufey’s “Promise” that earned her a season-best score and moved her toward the top of the leaderboard.

Alysa Liu’s short program on Tuesday earned her a season-best score.

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She was followed by Isabeau Levito, 18, whose elegant routine to “Almost In Your Arms, Zou Bisou Bisou” landed her in fifth place, with a few skaters left to go. She ultimately finished the night in eighth place.

The penultimate skater was Amber Glenn, the three-time reigning U.S. champion, making her Olympic debut at age 26.

Glenn kicked off her program — set to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” — with a clean triple axel, a rare feat for women at the Olympics. The rest of her routine was strong until the very last jump, which she landed as a double rather than the required triple, docking her otherwise strong score.

She left the ice in tears, and put her head in her hands after receiving a score of 67.39, as a hush briefly came over the packed crowd. Glenn, one of the medal favorites in the entire women’s field, finished the night in 13th place.

Liu was talking to reporters below the rink as Glenn took the ice, with her routine — and reaction — visible on a TV screen. Liu seemed concerned for her teammate and friend.

“She’s gone through so much and she works so freaking hard … I just want her to be happy,” Liu said of Glenn. “Like, that’s genuinely all I want. And so I’ll be seeing her later.”

Glenn has been an outspoken advocate for mental health, publicly sharing about her struggles with anxiety and depression throughout her career. She did not take questions from the press at the end of the night.

The bulk of U.S. skating fans’ hopes for a women’s medal now rest with Liu. It’s an ironic twist for the skater who retired as a teenager, then returned with renewed emphasis on creativity over competition.

After her performance on Tuesday, Liu spoke excitedly of her hopes of being invited to perform at the Olympic exhibition gala this weekend, teasing a “really cool gala program” she’s been working on that’s “basically done.”

“I don’t need a medal,” she said. “I just need to be here, and I just need to be present. And I need people to see what I do next.”

In the first race, he won more than 18% of the primary vote and a handful of primaries and caucuses.

“Merely by being black and forcing other candidates to consider his very real potential to garner black votes, which they need, Jackson has had an impact,” read a 1984 New York Times profile.

Four years later, he built on that success by winning 11 primaries and caucuses.

Jackson began his work as an organizer with the Congress of Racial Equality, participating in marches and sit-ins. He attended North Carolina A&T State University and graduated with a degree in sociology. He began rallying student support for King during his divinity studies at Chicago Theological Seminary and participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama.

Shortly afterward, Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, to work alongside King full time. He drew praise from King as a young man running the SCLC’s economic development and empowerment program, Operation Breadbasket — “we knew he was going to do a good job, but he’s done better than a good job,” King said.

As he grew as an organizer, Jackson married Jacqueline Brown, who survives him, in 1962. They have five children, including former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.

Jackson, who was at the motel in Memphis, Tennessee, with King when he was assassinated in 1968, did not let up after King’s death. He took his vision for Black liberation even further by founding People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, in 1971. He resigned from the SCLC that year to start PUSH after he was suspended from the organization; he was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain. PUSH worked to improve economic conditions of Black communities in the country and later expanded to politics with direct action campaigns and social areas through a weekly radio show and awards for Black people.

Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid prompted the launch of his National Rainbow Coalition, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s policies and advocated for social programs, voting rights and affirmative action. PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition merged in 1996 and are now the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

His 1984 campaign angered some Democrats who said his ideas were too left-leaning and would hurt the party in the general election. Jackson dismissed the concerns.

“The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near-poor back on front of the American agenda,” Jackson said of the 1984 campaign in a 1996 interview with PBS. “This is a dangerous mission, and yet it’s a necessary mission!”

Jackson’s 1984 campaign was marred when he referred to Jewish people as “hymies” and called New York City “hymietown” in a Washington Post interview. He initially denied having made the remarks and accused Jewish people of targeting his campaign. He later admitted having used the slur and offered an impassioned apology.

In 1991, Jackson was elected as one of Washington, D.C.’s two “shadow senators” to lobby for D.C. statehood and served one term.

Jackson also helped win the release of several detained and captured Americans around the world. In 1999, he negotiated the release of three U.S. soldiers being held in Yugoslavia. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for those efforts a year later.

Jackson’s other successes included winning the release of a U.S. Navy pilot in 1984 from Syrian captors after his plane was shot down, at least 16 Americans held in Cuba in 1984, 700 women and children from Iraq in 1990 and two Gambian Americans from prison in the West African country in 2012.