The world awaits Osmond
She’s still processing her world championship win, but says it definitely gives her confidence for next season
Kaetlyn Osmond’s weekend win at the 2018 world championships in Italy doesn’t mean the Marystown native is done skating this season. She’ll be skating with Stars on Ice in Japan and Canada, and in between will travel back to Newfoundland for a couple of shows here.
It was almost 1 a.m. before Kaetlyn Osmond was back at her hotel room in Milan, Italy, exhausted from a long and exhilarating Friday.
She took a few minutes to answer a couple of the hundreds of congratulatory messages she’d received before falling into bed three years after a gruesome broken leg nearly ended her career, the 22-year-old Marystown native won gold at the world figure skating championships on Friday night, ending a Canadian drought that stretched back 45 years.
“To be able to finally prove to myself that I can do that in competition and not just in practice gives me a lot of motivation for what else I can come up with.”
Kaetlyn Osmond
The remarkable accomplishment is still sinking in.
“I definitely never expected (my free skate) to lead to gold,” said Osmond, who was in fourth place — and cursing her missed double Axel — after Wednesday’s short program.
But she made up for any regrets with the long program.
She was the first skater on the ice for the final group of six on Friday and laid down an almost flawless Black Swan program for 223.23 total points. She then sat and watched from a small couch with coach Ravi Walia as the final five skaters, including Olympic champion Alina Zagitova, attempted and failed to top her score.
“It was absolutely crazy to be able to see that,” Osmond said.
Osmond won her first Canadian title in 2013 when she was just 17, but in the fall of 2014, she broke her leg in two places, and had to start from scratch, relearning not only her jumps and spins but the simple act of stroking on the ice.
Her first tentative lap around the rink after her accident took almost half an hour, Osmond clutching Walia’s arm for support.
Friday night, Osmond’s only misstep came when she fell during the medal ceremony.
Osmond was leading Japan’s silver and bronze medallists, Wakaba Higuchi and Satoko Miyahara, in a lap around the ice, when she failed to see the rubber mat to the podium.
She tripped over it and fell, rolling in the Canadian flag she’d seconds earlier held aloft. The Japanese medallists rushed to help her up, as Osmond, laughing, gave a mini bow.
Her gold was Canada’s first in women’s singles since Karen Magnussen won in 1973.
Osmond said Magnussen, who turns 66 next month, emailed her congratulations both after she won world silver
last year in Helsinki and bronze at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Her parents had been in Pyeongchang, but couldn’t make it for the worlds. But she was in contact with them right after her big win.
“They were very excited. I’m sure my mom (Jackie) is still crying,” she said.
It’s been an amazing five weeks for Osmond. She helped Canada to gold in the team event and then won singles bronze at the Winter Olympics in Korea, although she admitted it was a tough slog getting back on the ice at her training base in Edmonton.
“I was definitely emotionally and physically drained. That was difficult,” she said. “But then I enjoyed myself a little bit and went to Toronto to work with Jeffrey (Buttle) on a new
exhibition program for Stars on Ice, so that took my mind off everything a little bit more, and almost gave me another energy boost.”
Osmond, who finished runner-up to Gabrielle Daleman at the Canadian championships in January, said her late-season strength has her extra motivated for next season.
“It definitely gives me a lot of confidence. Being able to put out two clean long programs at the end of my season was probably the most rewarding feeling for me,” she said. “To be able to finally prove to myself that I can do that in competition and not just in practice gives me a lot of motivation for what else I can come up with.”
The Canadian team, which held a post-competition celebration Saturday evening,
leaves Italy with two medals — Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje won bronze in ice dance to cap the competition.
Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir didn’t compete at the worlds, and are expected to announce their retirement in the coming weeks, while two-time world pairs champs Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, and three-time men’s champion Patrick Chan said they were retiring after Pyeongchang.
The massive turnover casts a question mark on Canada’s team. Osmond, though, has stepped up as a leader.
“It was definitely something I didn’t expect. I never saw myself in the leadership role before, and being a veteran still feels new to me,” she said. “This is only my fourth worlds, and
I’ve been all over the map at worlds, I was eighth, I was 11th, and then didn’t even qualify, so I didn’t know I was going to step up into a veteran role like this.”
Osmond is now headed to Japan to skate in the Stars on Ice tour there. She will also be doing Stars on Ice in Canada beginning in late April. In between are two skating stops in Newfoundland, with the highlight certain to be on April 14, when she returns to Marystown and the Kaetlyn Osmond Arena, the facility named in honour of the world champion who began her skating career there as a little girl.
Osmond will also skate in Grand Falls-windsor on April 22, but not before conducting a seminar for the skaters at the C.B.S. Skating Club on the 15th of the month.