TOP OF THE WORLDS
Canada’s Gabrielle Daleman and Kaetlyn Osmond in top three after short program.
Russian girl figure skaters are like matryoshka nesting dolls: one inside the other inside the other inside the other.
The nation has been popping out global-best females in recent years, a production line of figurines capturing figure skating titles: Adelina Sotnikova at the 2014 Olympics, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva at the 2015 world championships, Evgenia Medvedeva at last year’s worlds.
Such is their cornucopia of riches that neither Tuktamysheva nor Sotnikova are on the team that has been sent to Helsinki. Also excluded on this particular journey were such decorated luminaries as Yulia Lipnitskaya, the 2014 world silver medallist, and Elena Radionova, the 2015 bronze winner.
All of them were teenagers who burned brilliantly for a year and then flamed out, with the 17-year-old Medvedeva the exception. Medvedeva is looking to become the first female singles skater to win backto-back titles since Michelle Kwan of the U.S. in 2000-01.
Rinse and replace is the Russian mantra. Always more where that came from. Except. Nobody foresaw a brace of Canadian chutzpah muscling their way into the potential medal mix at the 2017 championships.
Oh, Medvedeva is still in the lead, after Wednesday’s short program competition here.
Yet not commandingly so, a mere 3.03 points ahead of Newfoundland-born Kaetlyn Osmond, who is a little more than three ticks ahead of Newmarket teenager Gabrielle Daleman. Canada has never had two women ranked within the top three after the short program segment of the worlds.
A Canadian woman to the left. A Canadian woman to the right. Flanking the wisp of a Russian girl in between — on the press conference dais, anyway.
That Medvedeva, who hasn’t lost a competition since 2015, stands astride the rankings midway through the event is the least surprising interim result of this contest. The unflappable teen — she of the signature one-arm perisco-peraised overhead on all her jumps (very Brian Boitano-ish) — has been formidably consistent, triple-rotating from strength to strength while fooling around in practice with a quad, which would make her the first woman to achieve that feat should she ever land it in competition.
However, if Osmond, the 21-yearold three-time and reigning Canadian champion, can hold her nerve Friday and lay down her first clean free skate of the season, this might all turn out very interestingly indeed.
Ditto for Daleman, in bronze territory only a few weeks after collecting her first-ever international medal, a silver at the Four Continents.
As they stand at the moment: Medvedeva — 79.01; Osmond — 75.98. Daleman — 72.19.
Followed by Russian Anna Pogorilaya, American Karen Chen, Russian Maria Sotskova and American Ashley Wagner.
Of course the current 1-2-3 arrangement might not stand the test of the free skate, a particular bane for Osmond’s challenging La Boheme routine, who fell from second to out of the medals at both the Four Continents and her debut Grand Prix final last December.
“I’ve been skating this way all year,” Osmond said of her flawless Edith Piaf short program acquittal, featuring an opening triple fliptriple toe combination, triple Lutz and required double Axel.
“I’ve been getting season’s best at every single competition.’’ Pause. “Besides Four Continents.”
“Just knowing that I’m in second now, it just feels incredible.”
She is not just second, but she’s nipping at Medvedeva’s heels.
“At the Grand Prix final, we were in the exact same position,” Osmond reminds. “She had the exact same score and I had the exact same score. So it’s the exact same position.’’
She yearns to crack that that Russian world stranglehold, smash a few matryoshkas maybe. But La Boheme, in front of judges, has proved her undoing.
“We’ve worked a lot on the long program . . . improving stamina and changing the way she approaches the long program mentally,” says Ravi Wallia, who has coached Osmond out of Edmonton since she was 11 years old. “I think she was putting a lot of pressure on herself to skate perfect. She became a little obsessed with that.’’
Her practice ease with the routine simply hasn’t transferred to optimum quality in competition. Striving for perfect wasn’t working, Wallia told her.
“Instead of trying to train to go out there and be perfect, go out there and achieve excellence. Hopefully this change of attitude will obtain a better result.”
Or, as Osmond puts it: “Hopefully it will show this time when I do it.”
For Daleman, 19, un-spooling a sparkling Herodiade — a triple toe-triple toe opening combo carrying a lesser degree of difficult than Osmond’s offering — was pretty close to what she’d expected of herself, as co-coach Brian Orser simulated all the elements from his position at the sideboards.
“There’s still room for improvement but I’m very happy with what I did. That’s what I’ve been doing every day in practice.’’
The best part was that her schoolteacher dad, Michael, landed in Helsinki in the early afternoon and raced to the rink in a cab, arriving just in time to watch his daughter compete. Gabrielle spotted him in the crowd only as she sat in the kiss ’n’ cry afterwards, shrieking: “Oh my God! I see my dad!”
Mom Rhonda was already in situ, amidst the surprisingly pro-Canada crowd and the dozens of Maple Leaf flags. Meanwhile, back in Canada, Daleman’s two Yorkie-mix puppies, Rocky and Apollo, were watching on TV, as her brother Zack assured via text message.
“He’s like, all three of us sat down and watched you. They were barking at you.”
On her self-assured skate: “I did no more, no less, than what I normally do every day, just took it one element at a time, completely enjoyed myself and stayed in the moment.”
Sure, fine. But no normal day for the Canadian dames at Worlds ’17.