Perfection ‘doesn’t exist’ for Osmond

Kin Regina aetlyn Osmond chased perfection for an entire season and might as well have been hunting unicorns.

Sure, she regained her Canadian ladies figure skating crown and capped the year with a dazzling silvermedal performance at world championships in Helsinki. But the quest was still counter-productive. Foolhardy, even. Now, it’s over. “I aim to skate as clean as possible,” the Edmontonbased skater said last week on a conference call. “I realized last year perfection I can’t aim for because it doesn’t exist.”

Her coach Ravi Walia reinforced that notion Thursday as Osmond practised at Brandt Centre in Regina for Skate Canada International, her first Grand Prix assignment of 2017-18.

“We learned last season, when she was focusing on perfection, it wasn’t working. It was creating issues with her results and her success, so we just changed her mindset,” said Walia, who has coached Osmond for a dozen years in Edmonton.

“The focus is on excellence and it seemed to really help. She knows that if she just focuses on excellence, more likely the perfection will be there.

“We talked about it again today. Perfection, it’s hard when you’re out there. Last season, she was getting close. The next step was perfection and that’s when she hit a roadblock. Of course you want to be perfect. That’s every athlete’s goal. It wasn’t working. I told her, ‘Forget that.’”

It sounds like little more than semantics. But a skater who has it figured out between the ears will often show it on the ice, especially when it counts most.

And make no mistake, Osmond is a gamer. She works weekly with a sport psychologist and there is no questioning her mental toughness. If the pursuit of excellence works better than unicorn hunting, so be it.

She approaches every competition with the same mindset anyway. She will tell you, for instance, the local events she won in Vancouver and Edmonton this summer are just as important to her as anything else she’ll do this season, which most people refer to as an Olympic season. Pretty big event there in South Korea.

“I think about it, but I think of it as just another competition because essentially it is,” said Osmond. “I never dreamt of the Olympics growing up. It’s not something that I watched on TV, it’s not something my parents ever talked about.”

She will also tell you that silver medal she won at worlds hasn’t changed her or her life even slightly, give or take the cockapoo puppy she met shortly before the event and picked up afterward.

The approach doesn’t seem to be a coping mechanism. Walia, who has coached her into adulthood, has a pretty good handle on who she is.

“She hasn’t changed at all,” said Walia. “She has a much higher world ranking, but really everything has stayed the same.”

So, too, has the ladies discipline. Osmond is in the podium mix, as is Canadian teammate Gabrielle Daleman, who starts the Grand Prix season in Beijing at Cup of China next week. She was third at worlds last spring.

Russian Evgenia Medvedeva, two-time defending world champ, is surely among the podium favourites for PyeongChang. She won the Rostelecom Cup last week.

But a lot can happen between now and February and last year’s worlds are old news, according to Osmond.

“I’m really excited with what I can do and what I can show, but coming in as a world silver medallist doesn’t mean too much for me this year because there are a lot of really talented skaters this year and everyone is going to be at the top of their game with it being an Olympic year,” she said.

“Definitely, I think my name is known a little bit better, but overall it’s the same people I have competed against for many years now.”

Her competition history was interrupted by a broken right leg she suffered in training in September 2014. She is now two full seasons removed from the surgeries, rehab and serious doubts that threatened her career.

She credits Walia for his key role in what has already been a stunning comeback.

“Ravi kept pushing me even when I didn’t want to be pushed or couldn’t be pushed or didn’t even know if I wanted to skate,” she said. “He reminded me of what it was like to skate. He brought me to seminars where I could help coach. He brought me to small shows. Anything to remind me of why I love skating.

“He didn’t outright say it to me then, but he did these things to get my passion going for the sport again.”

Consider that job done to perfection. Kaetlyn Osmond has ended her quest for the perfect routine and will instead settle for “clean” skates this season.