Cutting the strings leads to medals
Kaetlyn Osmond was a 3-year-old Teletubby in a Newfoundland town so tiny that just about every kid was given a role in the annual skate show. They’ve named the rink after her now.
Gabrielle Daleman was an 8-year-old glued to the TV when Joannie Rochette placed fifth at the 2006 Olympics in Turin. She announced to her parents: “‘That’s what I want to do, I want to represent Canada, I want to go to the worlds, I want to go the Olympics, I want to win medals and I want to be the best at this sport.’ And from that point on I skyrocketed.”
She never wanted for self-confidence, that girl. Osmond, by contrast, has been riven by injury-induced doubts these past few years: Double surgery for a fractured fibula, the second time to remove a plate and seven screws; a sprained ankle ligament; a pulled groin after landing awkwardly on the splits.
Here they both are be-medaled in Helsinki and feted at home, inundated with social media congratulations. They are the silver and bronze ladies at the world figure skating championships, a two-fer podium finish never before achieved by Canadian women.
For years and years, Canada’s female singles skaters — with the rare exception of a Rochette or an Elizabeth Manley — had been the punch line to a joke, “The Human Zambonis” as reporters had dubbed them, betting on crashes at major events.
We know now, in retrospect — some of us even knew it back when — why Canadian females couldn’t keep up with the international pace, while Americans and Russians and Japanese dominated. In a nutshell, Skate Canada remained unduly wary of allowing young girls to spread their triple-jump wings. It was forbidden for coaches to allow their precocious students to fly.
“The thinking with ladies in the past was, when they were young there was that cautiousness of having them do too much — was there the potential for injury?” acknowledges Mike Slipchuk, high performance director at Skate Canada. “What we started to see across the world was these young skaters were coming up, they were doing all the triples at 13, 14.”
Skaters, male and female, have to contend with puberty and growth spurts. Only the girls were held back.
“When they went through their growth period, that whole change, they didn’t lose the stuff,” says Slipchuk, referring to the tripling proteges from other countries. “Whereas ours, after all the growth and maturity, were then trying to learn it, which was much harder.’’
Rochette and Cynthia Phaneuf (though the latter was also treated like crystal) were from that post triple-averse generation, developing their tricks alongside their rivals.
Osmond and Daleman and Alain Chartrand, last year’s national champion, are very much part of a recalibrated-philosophy generation.
Only one female, 17-year-old Russian phenomenon Evgenia Medvedeva, was better than the Canadian girls in Helsinki.
Jumping isn’t what set Medvedeva in a class of her own. Osmond and Medvedeva both opened with a triple flip-triple toe combination, base value 9.60, each earning a grade of execution of 1.40. Medvedeva had a second triple-triple while Osmond opted for a double Axel-triple toe. And Medvedeva had better component marks — the artistry scores, skating skills and transitions and musical interpretation etc. So, a finer quality, but not by a huge mar-
“There’s actually not a big gap. I have all the combinations. I can do triple toe on everything.” GABRIELLE DALEMAN ON TURNING BRONZE TO GOLD
gin. Medvedeva has won her last dozen competitions and was defending champion here. Osmond had struggled with her long program all season but pulled it off beautifully at the world championships, her most damaging misstep doubling out of a triple loop.
Osmond, 21 aims to close in on the Russian in the upcoming Olympic season — assuming Russians are allowed to compete in South Korea, as the International Olympic Committee is still considering further sanctions over massive doping revelations in that nation.
“I’m working on it,” Osmond says. “I’ve been second to her a couple of times this year. Hopefully with a little more improvement and consistency in my long program, I’ll be able to squeeze the gap a little bit.”
But, Osmond points out, “My combinations are as hard as I can make them with the flip-toe and Axel-toe. They’re both really highlevel jumps, especially with the GOE that I would get on them.”
Back-ending programs with more jumps in the second half — where they have a higher base value — can be disruptive to aesthetics, Osmond notes, at least it would have been in her La Boheme free skate. “I love the classic side of skating, making it look like a full program and not just technical based.”
For her part, Daleman sees noth- ing lacking about her opening triple toe-triple toe, though that’s the easiest three-rotation jump.
“There’s actually not a big gap,” the 19-year-old from Newmarket protests. “I have all the combinations. I can do triple toe on everything but I’m the only person in the world who can get straight plus-3s on the triple-triple combination.’’
Plus-3 is the highest GOE available.
“People are, like, ‘Why aren’t you changing it?’ I don’t need to. I came third at worlds with a triple toetriple toe and I got the highest GOEs. It’s one of my most confident jumps. I don’t need to do anything more, I don’t need to do anything less. It’s perfect the way it is.”
True to her claim, Daleman did receive the highest GOE for that jump pass: 2.10. But a triple toe- triple toe has a base value of 8.60. The triple flip-triple toe, at 9.60, is harder.
But Daleman, despite a coaching posse that includes Brian Orser, Tracy Wilson and Lee Barkell, clearly is a young woman with a mind of her own. And that mind does venture into the realm of possibilities, perhaps even some day of pushing the women’s envelope with a quad jump. “I’ve gotten asked if I’m doing quads, am I doing triple Axel. Honestly, I don’t know. It may be in the future, it may not be.”
As for her bronze: “I told my dad last year that I wanted to medal (and he) took it as a joke. He was, like, ‘OK, say what you want.’ Then I come here and he’s like: ‘Wow, she actually did it.’ “When I sent my mind to something, I’ll go after it.”