Team gold medal takes the pressure off skaters
Canadians look to build on group’s podium success
Figure skater Kaetlyn Osmond believes she’s found an escape from the pressures of competing in an Olympics.
Her ticket out? That team event gold medal dangling from her neck.
“I think it gives a lot of motivation going into our own event, saying we’re already an Olympic gold medallist. It takes a lot of the pressure off, I think. I’m so excited to compete my individual event. I’ve been training. There are mistakes in my short program that I want to fix. But definitely I’m ready to compete. I’m ready to fight and it’s just great motivation.”
That’s certainly one way to look at the lasting effect of a team event gold, and if the Marystown, N.L., native plays that mental pawn to her advantage when women skate their short programs later in the Games, good for her. Every bit helps, and she needs to improve on a short program that left her third in a field of 10, one that was missing podium contender Alina Zagitova, an Olympic athlete from Russia. She skated only the long and won it, ahead of Mirai Nagasu of the U.S. and Toronto’s Gabrielle Daleman.
In men’s action, Ottawa’s Patrick Chan will be looking to repeat the precision of his quads in the long program, clean up the problems he’s had with triple Axels and perhaps make one last assault on the Olympic podium before retirement. But he’s adamant that the team-event gold is just as meaningful as anything he’ll win on his own, so he might also be out from under the pressurized Olympic bubble.
“We’re made to believe the individual event is all that matters. … Now I have a gold medal, not only that but two opportunities to skate here on Olympic ice. Whether it was good or bad, what a great opportunity. And I don’t know when it’s going to happen again, so I’m just savouring every moment I have on that ice,” he said.
And he’s had plenty of time to do that already, having skated both short and long. Chan’s opponents for individual medals made other decisions, or had them made by team officials, and the wisdom of their strategies will be evident soon. Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan skipped the team event, his teammate Shoma Uno skated only the short and won it. American Nathan Chen skated only the short and made a mess of it, so he’ll be looking for redemption. Mikhail Kolyada, an Olympic athlete from Russia, struggled through both short and long programs. Advantage Chan? Perhaps. Pairs skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford see an advantage in having skated both long and short at the team event, if only for the extra time it gave them in the venue under the heat of competition. Not to mention that medal.
“I think we’re going to enter the individual event feeling very comfortable and at home,” said Duhamel, who lives in SaintLeonard, Que. “We’ve competed in this venue not once but twice now. We’ve done all our practice sessions here. I feel very settled in the arena, in the competition environment.”
Ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of London, Ont., won both the short and long, but didn’t have to skate against their perceived rivals for gold in their own event, Gabrielle Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, who didn’t participate in the team event.
It gives a lot of motivation going into our own event, saying we’re already an Olympic gold medallist. It takes a lot of the pressure off. KAETLYN OSMOND, above