DALEMAN BRINGS FIGHTING SPIRIT TO CHAMPIONSHIPS
Canadian Olympic hopeful says she used figure skating as an escape from bullying
Gabrielle Daleman hit the pinnacle of her skating career with a bronze medal at the world championships in Helsinki last spring.
Then, she says, she almost died. She had been treated for an abdominal cyst before the worlds, but the pain returned. That pain, which led to hospital visits in between Stars on Ice shows in Toronto, ultimately turned into emergency abdominal surgery that Daleman says saved her life.
Instead of following up her surprising success in Finland with a summer of work on the ice heading into an Olympic year, the 19-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., who turns 20 on Saturday, had to stop skating altogether. She hung out at the family cottage in Parry Sound, she did yoga, she “stared at the water,” she dumped the phone and social media. She worked on, she says, “becoming myself.”
The break, Daleman says, “made me realize what’s important, what was toxic in my life, what’s not, and it just made me become a better me, and I’m so grateful for it.”
If Daleman sounds unexpectedly sanguine about a serious ailment, that’s because it turns out she is some kind of fighter. She’s back competing again at the Canadian figure skating championships this week, where she is the defending silver medallist and all but a lock to be on the Canadian team for Pyeongchang 2018.
Daleman spoke Thursday about how the recovery from surgery was just the latest challenge in her life. She spoke about being bullied at school, and about the eating disorder that followed from it. The conversation was raw and it was honest, and like that podium finish at the worlds, it came a little out of nowhere.
In one moment, Daleman sounds like any other teen. She talks about training on the treadmill while watching Moana or Beauty and the Beast, belting out the songs while her father hangs out to keep her company. She’s excited about having two new costumes for this weekend “because, like, sparkles.”
But then Daleman also speaks about the teasing she endured at school, the kids who said she was too fat or too muscular to be a skater, who told her she should quit, who bugged her about a learning disability. It is at once perplexing, because Daleman seems like the last kid who would be targeted: she’s petite, pretty and athletic. But that’s the thing about bullying, isn’t it? Anyone can be a victim.
“It was, ‘You’re not pretty enough, you’re not graceful enough,’ it was just a whole list of stuff, why I shouldn’t be a skater. They told me I shouldn’t continue skating because my dreams are just dreams, they would never be a reality.”
She says her escape was the rink, where she could go to be by herself and do what she loves. No taunting, no teasing, just her and the ice.
Daleman says the problems began in Grade 1 and continued through Grade 10. Basically, until she became an Olympian. There were times when she wouldn’t eat, or would eat and then immediately work out to burn off the calories. She started to speak out about what had happened to her as a kid late last year, beginning with a television interview.
“I’ve had people come up to me and say they have spoken out because of that video and that’s really touching, because no one should go through it. It’s awful,” Daleman says. “Still to this day I can cry about it.”
She says some people have reached out to apologize, to say they didn’t realize what she was going through. Others have not.
After making the podium at the worlds, she says, she took time to reflect on those struggles, and to appreciate the hard work that got her to that point. That moment of reflection, though, led almost right into the health problems. And then the summer off, and the rest and recuperation. It is an unusual Olympic journey.
I’ve had people come up to me and say they have spoken out because of that video and that’s really touching, because no one should go through it. It’s awful
“But at the end of the day, I’m very grateful for all the highs and lows I went through, because it has taught me so much leading up to this year, and the Olympics, and how to handle anything,” she says.
As if to underline that point, Daleman made the decision to ditch the free skate program she had been working on this season — set to the theme from Gladiator — and return to a retooled version of the Rhapsody in Blue routine she performed last year. She says a year ago, she would not have been confident enough to make that call, would not have been a bold enough skater to tell her coaches that she needed to make a change. Now, she is that skater.
“My gut and my heart were telling me Rhapsody in Blue was my Olympic program and that I needed to go back, and so that’s what we did.”
And so now she’s working on that new version of an old program with less than a month until the Olympics begin.
It would seem like a tough challenge to overcome, but Gabby Daleman is used to that.