Osmond shines, Daleman slips in short program

GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA All around them, their Canadian teammates have made podium pit stops before heading for the exit.

But Gabrielle Daleman and Kaetlyn Osmond, who collected team event gold with the rest of the goodbye gang, aren’t going anywhere.

Well, they’re going to the long program — both qualified after their short skates on Wednesday — but you get the idea.

Osmond is 22, Daleman just 20. They are the future podium chasers for Canada in a sport suddenly in dire need of leadership by example.

Osmond took that bull by the horns Wednesday, laying down a spectacular short program worthy of the 78.87 points she was awarded. She sailed through the program with speed and power and nary a wobble.

She’s solidly in third place. Alina Zagitova nailed the toughest list of elements in the field and leads with 82.92, while fellow Olympic Athlete from Russia Evgenia Medvedeva sits second with 81.61, and regretted not doing her combination better.

Daleman trails in seventh. She was hyper-critical of her performance of Carmen, which was flawed only by a hand down on the back end of a triple-triple combination to kick it off.

“That was just it,” she said, when asked if there was more to her distress than just the one mistake. “I’m very hard on myself. I always have been. Overall I wasn’t happy with it because that’s my jump. It’s just a stupid mistake.”

Daleman scored 68.90 points, with the long to come. That is her preferred program — she nailed it in the team event here — but she is 10 points out of a podium place and that probably takes her out of the conversation for medals at these Olympics.

But there will be another. And Skate Canada will need both Daleman and Osmond to lead the way to Beijing in 2022.