Kaetlyn Osmond looking for redemption
Ice Palace skater finished 13th in Sochi
Kaetlyn Osmond is looking for redemption at the world figure skating championships in Saitama, Japan, this week.
As exciting as it was to win a silver medal in the debut of the team event at the Olympic Games, and as wonderful as her experience was in the Athletes Village, the twotime Canadian champion left Sochi, Russia, wanting a lot more.
“I was definitely not happy with my skates and really not happy with my placement (13th),” said Osmond, who will compete in the women’s short program that starts at 12:45 a.m. Thursday while the free skate (or long program) begins at 2:15 a.m. Saturday.
“I’m definitely going to want to redeem myself for that, and that includes me skating the way I do in practice.”
For example, on the day of this interview, Osmond skated clean short and free programs.
“That’s how I want to skate because it’s how I’ve been skating in practice,” said the star of the Ice Palace Figure Skating Club. “I want to show that and, hopefully, aim for a better finish than my top eight at last year’s worlds.”
Osmond, 18, actually had two competitions 10 days apart at the Olympics, skating both of her programs in the team and individual events.
“I trained four programs within a day here, so it wasn’t that bad for me,” she said.
Osmond, who took a fiveday break between the two events to train at Mannheim, Germany, and get away from the Olympic hype, has a new appreciation for the Winter Games. She said “it was a lot more exciting” to watch live events rather than on TV and to be involved in a competition with a multitude of sports and thousands of athletes.
“I’ve never been one to watch sports, and even the past Olympics, I never really watched anything other than a few of the figure skaters, so I didn’t really know anyone going in,” she said. “I knew some people were getting star-struck seeing past champions or people they’ve always looked up to.
“For me, I could be talking to someone one minute and then realize who I was talking to like 20 minutes after I stopped talking to them.
“Just the fact I was around so many high-level athletes of different sports, it was just great to ... see what they’re all like. I’d be talking to someone who’s going to a competition and I’d get really into how they did and be able to congratulate them.”
Osmond became good friends with Canada’s shorttrack speedskaters, whom she flew home with, and got to watch Charles Hamelin win a gold medal in the 1,500 metres.
“That was really motivating to watch a Canadian win,” she said. “And I got to the men’s (hockey) semifinal game against the U.S. and I ended up going to the mountains to watch a bit of the bobsleigh.
“I guess when I get to the 2018 Olympics, it’ll be really cool to watch more sports then, because I’m more into it. I didn’t know what I wanted to watch because I’ve never really watched anything. But now, I’ll definitely want to be able to check out more of the sports, more of the mountain sports.”
Osmond also discovered that nothing compares to the thrill of receiving an Olympic medal.
“It was the experience of getting that medal that was out of this world,” she said. “There’s such a different thing to get a medal on an outdoor podium, not in a rink, not in our skating dresses. We were in Olympic attire standing on a podium with a team, and there’s something so different than anything I’ve ever had. It was so exciting and so mesmerizing ...
“It was the experience of getting that medal that was out of this world.” KAETLYN OSMOND
and it felt great.”
The silver medal has accompanied Osmond to various appearances around Edmonton “because people want to see it.” Osmond was honoured at both an Oil Kings game and an Oilers game on the same day at Rexall Place. A hockey fan, she was excited to meet some Oilers and other local Olympians.
At Sochi, Osmond skated a clean short program in her Olympic debut in the team competition but didn’t enjoy her long program because it didn’t “feel” right. So while she still wanted “to skate perfect” in the individual event, her main goal was to enjoy her programs.
“I was already coming out of there with a silver medal, so I really had nothing to lose.”
Osmond did enjoy her individual programs but was “shocked” by a couple of mistakes in her short program she called “a fluke” — turning her triple-triple combination jump into a triple-double and missing her double Axel for the first time “in like a month and a half.”
“That was really what shook me up after that,” she said of the double Axel.
The beginning of Osmond’s free skate “went over so well,” but then she made a couple of mistakes she never makes in practice.
Since returning to Edmonton, she has altered her short program, changing her triple-triple combo to a triple flip-triple toe and switching a triple flip to a triple Lutz “because I feel more comfortable doing the higher triples and having a challenge for worlds.”
T here wa s a rep or t Osmond’s hamstring injury was bothering her by the end of the Olympics, but she shrugged it off as just fatigue after a long competition. She was getting physical therapy and said “it was fine while I was on the ice.” It is not a concern heading to the worlds. ON THE FLIP SIDE: Osmond will be among several Olympians performing in 12 shows on the Stars on Ice tour, which stops at Rexall Place on May 9.