Daleman can breathe again as No. 1
Newmarket skater regains national women’s title on her 20th birthday
VANCOUVER— Amazingly, Gabrielle Daleman did not announce to reporters, all a-trill and a-thrill after her gold medal triumph at Canadians, that she had just been diagnosed with leprosy.
(A line I actually stole from Scott Stinson of the National Post.)
On Thursday the Newmarket native opened up about her eating disorder, horribly bullied youth and three-month recovery last summer for emergency abdominal surgery.
A day later, Daleman informed the media mob that the strep throat she’d been receiving treatment for in recent weeks had just turned into pneumonia.
On Saturday, her 20th birthday and the day on which she retrieved from defending women’s champion Kaetlyn Osmond the national time she’d previously won in 2015, Daleman could report only being up until 1 a.m., feeling sickly, on account of the pneumonia and not being able to breathe, and waking up her boyfriend back in the Eastern time zone to moan about it.
None of which mattered anymore as the reigning world bronze medallist talked a rat-a-tat mile-a-minute, her throat and lungs apparently up to the task, gulping at the rarefied air of the top-of-the-podium ozone layer.
“No more, I promise,” she laughed about her daily medical reports.
She pulled the occasion off with record Canadians score of 151.90 for her Rhapsody in Blue free skate program — overtaking her own long record of 141.41 from almost a year ago at the 2017 world team trophy competition — and a combined score of 229.78, which surpassed Osmond’s Canadian record from 2017.
“You know what? It didn’t matter at the end of the day about the score. Kaetlyn’s such a great competitor. I saw her score. I saw the standing ovation. It made me want it that much more. After I just skated that program, I couldn’t have been more proud of myself through the entire year I’ve had, through all the ups and downs. I said yesterday, that’s the way to end19. And what I said today is this is a way to start 20.
“It was the best birthday present I could ever ask for. Not only to go out and skate two programs. But I have my national title back, I have a new Canadian record, but most importantly it’s on my birthday in front of my home country. So near and dear to my heart. It means the world to me.”
Day 1, age 20, was just about perfect for Daleman, as she proceeded with near perfection, certainly with a feathery lightness and sure-footedness, through seven triples, three of them in combination, along with elegant spirals, on-the-button spins and lively foot sequences.
“I didn’t even care that I couldn’t breathe. I just skated from my heart.’’
And she knew it was in the bag after nailing a middle-of-the-routine triple Lutz-double toe-double toe, and catching coach Tracey Wainman’s eyes at the end boards.
“I just got the biggest smile on my face. I could play with the audience. Everything was over, the hard work had paid off.’’
Well, hardly over. There was still a triple loop directly ahead and a triple-double sequence towards the end of the program. “I said to myself, no matter what, you do this loop, no matter what.”
Every skater has an element they don’t like or approach with trepidation, often not the most technically challenging.
For Osmond, it was also the loop, which she fell on after executing seamless triple-triple and double Axel-triple toe opening combinations for her Black Swan routine, followed by a confident Lutz.
“In my loop, I lost a bit of my confidence on the landing,” the threetime national champion from Newfoundland admitted with a scowl.
She’s historically had a wrestling match with it.
“That loop has probably been the most frustrating element for me. In competition, it’s been so off and on but at home it’s my most consistent element. At home I’ll do it 15 times in a row and land it 15 times. Here, once again, the only time I missed it was in my program. But at least this time I stayed on my feet.”
The 22-year-old fell again on her very next jump, a triple flip. “Silly mistakes are what’s getting me. I haven’t missed that second flip in my program in I don’t know how long. But overall I’m really happy with my performance. I feel I performed that program as best as I could.
“At the end I felt super-strong, super-powerful.”
She drew a free skate mark of147.32, 218.73 overall. Daleman and Osmond are both going to the Olympics, along with thirdplace finisher Larkyn Austman, 19, from nearby New Westminster. But Osmond acknowledges that it will feel different, arriving in Pyeongchang without the eclat of a national title.
“Going in as not the national champion is almost going to give me an extra boost while I’m there, to make up for the mistakes that I made here. But knowing that I still have the worlds’ silver under my belt makes me feel confident, makes me feel really strong.”