A LONG TIME COMING
Four years after breaking out as a 16-year-old, Kaetlyn Osmond is breaking through again
Twenty-year-old Kaetlyn Osmond, troubled by injuries since she won a bronze medal at the 2012 Canadian championships, put up a career-best score (74.33) in the women’s short program Friday, and is second at Skate Canada. Russia’s Evgenia Medvedeva is the leader, with 76.24 points.
At 17, Kaetlyn Osmond was a prostitute in her Sweet Charity routine: Sassy.
At 20, she’s a prostitute in her Sous le ciel de Paris, Milord composite routine: Bawdy.
Not saying this is a recurring theme or anything. But maybe at some future date, if the life of Xaviera Hollander is ever put to opera, Osmond might embrace the role of The Happy Hooker — the title of the lady’s 1971 autobiography — on ice.
Certainly the former Canadian women’s figure skating champion immensely enjoys embodying the streetwalker-from-the-docks Milord character, as warbled by Edith Piaf, in her short program for this season. Osmond un-spooled the rendition with tremendous polish and flair — 10 points over her careerbest for a short competition — on Friday at Skate Canada, bringing the Hershey Centre crowd to its feet. (A crowd, by the way, which felt like The-Land-of-the-Rising-Sun-onthe-Credit-River, such was the overwhelming presence of Japanese fans waving Japanese flags cheering on Japanese skaters in the women’s and men’s singles competition.)
Anyway, I wouldn’t even make mention of the streetwalker motif except skaters are all the time evoking narrative, background exposition stuff, to frame a program and the tale they’re trying to channel atop their blades. Figure skating, a sport wrapped in music and dolled up with fancy costumes, is inherently about presentation, storytelling artistry nearly equal to the technical skill required for elements such as jumps and spins and footwork.
Osmond, however, seemed somewhat confused about the Milord character she brought so vividly and enchantingly to life, across a program that featured an assured triple flip-triple toe-loop combination, a fine triple Lutz and double Axel, and an agile layback spin (Bielmann, free foot extended behind the head, back-breaking.)
“I wish I’d been to Paris,’’ Osmond enthused afterwards, her lovely face cracking in a wide grin over the well-received performance and the high 74.33 score at which it was evaluated.
“Then I would actually know how it actually feels to walk through the streets of Paris. But I just love playing the character of a confident female. I guess that program kind of gives me a fake-it-till-you-make-it feeling because I’m playing such a confident person that it rubs off on my skating.”
Reporter (not me): “You realize she’s a streetwalker.”
Osmond: “Just that she owns it when she walks.’’ Reporter: “But she’s a prostitute.’’ Osmond: “I actually didn’t know that.” Oh skip it. Here’s the more pertinent Skate Canada factoid about Osmond, who has already had a street named after her in Marystown, N.L., despite the fact she left the little town at age 7 and now skates out of an Edmonton club. At this same event a year ago, she fell half a dozen times, albeit in the long program. It was the worst competitive disaster of her life, though she took it in stride.
Now, 12 months later — in a season that begin with Osmond failing to recapture her national title and failing to make the world team by a margin of .12 points, those spots seized by Alaine Chartrand and Gabrielle Daleman — she’s sitting second at Skate Canada behind only reigning world champion Evgenia Medvedeva. A couple of weeks ago, Osmond took gold in the secondtier Finlandia Trophy.
Yesterday, there was a brief stutter on an inconsequential stroking sequence coming out of her backend flip but otherwise nothing amiss. “I definitely felt super-calm and confident. That program makes me happy every single time I do it.’’
It’s taken a long time for the young woman to put down a clean, dominating performance. “That’s something that I’ve been wanting for quite a while. And to finally get a personal record, it means so much to me.” Keep in mind what Osmond has contended with in recent years, since making her teenager debut smash: torn hamstring, stress reaction ankle, groin injury, sprained ligament, fibula broken in two places, necessitating two surgeries. Basically she had to learn to skate all over again and missed the entire 2014-15 season.
At her lowest point, she considered quitting. Except she’s always been happiest on the ice and pined to return. “When I was at my complete worst, it was a question of, would I be able to come back? But since I’ve been back and since I’ve been able to perform again and to practise great again, it’s never been a doubt in my mind as to why I came back. Each day I find something new to love about this sport that I never would have known if I didn’t go through everything I did.” And she’s feeling “super-healthy.”’ “This is the longest I’ve ever been healthy.”
There is, as well, a maturity to her skating these days; a ripening. “I think I just grew up. My debut, I was 16 years old. I was super-excited to be on the ice, not knowing what to expect when I was amongst so many top skaters.
“I think on a good day, the days when I skate the way I did today, that I could compete with them and I could be at their level.’’
On what felt like it was going to be the very best of days, Osmond held the top score until the very last skater was done. That was Medvedeva, merely the greatest female skater on the planet at the moment, defending European, World, Grand Prix and Russian national champion. The 16-year-old Moscow schoolgirl — she tosses off triple-tripletriples in practice — shaded Osmond with a score of 76.24. Her compatriot and 2015 World Champion Elizaveta Tuktamysheva is third, heading into Saturday’s free skate.
Meanwhile, Osmond’s compatriot and Canadian title-holder successor, Chartrand, is sixth after botching her combination.
Chartrand: “Grrrr.”