GANGNEUNG, Korea, Republic Of — Canada’s Kaetlyn Osmond has won a bronze medal in women’s figure skating at the Winter Olympics.
The reigning world silver medallist from Marystown, N.L., skating to music from "Black Swan," scored 152.15 in her long program for a combined score of 231.02.
She was also third after the short program.
Osmond’s medal is historic as it boosts Canada’s total in Pyeongchang to 27, an all-time high for the country at the Winter Games.
Russia’s Alina Zagitova, just 15 years old, scored a combined 239.57 to capture gold. Teammate and reigning world champion Evgenia Medvedeva of Russia won silver with 238.26 points.
Osmond, 22, who almost quit skating after breaking her leg in a training accident in 2014, nailed her long program, landing seven triples jumps. Her only mishap was a slight bobble on a triple Lutz.
Canada hadn’t won an Olympic medal in women’s singles since Joannie Rochette claimed bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games just days after her mom died of a heart attack.
It was a disastrous day for Gabrielle Daleman, who was seventh after the short program. The 20-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., fell three times — on her opening triple toeloop-triple toeloop combination, her triple Lutz, and triple flip.
Daleman, who won bronze at last year’s world championships, was deducted 4.00 points for the falls
Osmond and Daleman will be looked to as leaders of Canadian team that will have to rebuild after these Olympics. Among those retiring are ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who won double gold in Pyeongchang, three-time world champion Patrick Chan, and two-time world pairs champions Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who captured bronze.
Osmond and Daleman, along with the retiring veterans, claimed gold in the team event to open these Games.
A small — but loud — crowd of dedicated supporters burst into enthusiastic cheer early Friday morning in Marystown, N.L. as they saw their local hero clinch a third Olympic medal.
Supporters at the Kaetlyn Osmond Arena kept themselves awake until 1:30 a.m., and saw Osmond win a bronze medal in women's figure skating.
"I would have to say it's phenomenal, actually surreal, it doesn't even seem real to me tonight," said Gary Osmond, Kaetlyn's older brother.
Here’s the moment — Kaetlyn Osmond is guaranteed another Olympic medal. #cbcnl pic.twitter.com/h3glhn1om3 —@GarrettBarry
"I'm just blown away. I kind of hoped that she would score a medal of her own tonight, but I certainly didn't expect it of her, the fact that she's bringing it home, I've still gotta process it."
It's Osmond's third Olympic medal, adding to a gold in this year's figure skating team event, and a silver from the team event in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.
She beat her personal-best score on her way to the bronze.
Proud brother Gary Osmond was there to see the whole thing happen. #cbcnl pic.twitter.com/EKE2zf0359 —@GarrettBarry
Among the dozens who assembled for the late-night watch party in Marystown was Gerard Baker.
He's worked at the town's arena for almost 40 years, and says he remembers well when Osmond was just a young girl, learning to skate on his ice surface.
"She was always pretty determined to do well," he said. "Whenever she was on the ice, and when she fell down she'd cry, and come off, and get up in her mom or dad's arm, go to the bathroom and get her tears dried up and before you knew it, back on the ice again, spinning around again."
WATCH | “I’m happy everyone got to see that.”
Kaetlyn Osmond (@kaetlyn_23) talks to Paul Martini about how she was able to focus to win the 🥉 pic.twitter.com/oG3BHKPTnI —@CBCOlympics
Osmond's Olympic journey, which has seen her recover from a broken leg in 2014, is serving as an inspiration to young figure skaters in her hometown, according to cousin and friend Kia Power.
Kia Power says Kaetlyn Osmond's success is serving as an inspiration to young skaters in Marystown. She says she trained with Osmond in figure skating when she was a child. (Garrett Barry/CBC)
"I think it's so important, that they can revel in her joy, that they can see her confidence, that they know that even though, you know, sometimes life brings you down and throws those hardships at you, that you can build yourself back up and that dreams come true," she said.
"We're in a small town, and sometimes we see the world around us and we forget that there's such a big world and so many opportunities out there for us."
She got high marks from the judges, and 12-year-old skaters Brooklyn Kelly and Kendra Coady loved Osmond’s performance as well. #cbcnl pic.twitter.com/1rNhkat6y7 —@GarrettBarry
One of the young skaters finding encouragement from Osmond's success is 12-year-old Kendra Coady, who says the Olympic Games are a big reason she decided to first ask her mom for figure skating lessons.
"After watching her, and you get on the ice, you'll be like I can do everything and then you go and try it. And maybe you might fail, but it just gives you more motivation to get up and do it again until you get it right."
Hero's welcome planned
Osmond is scheduled to return to Marystown in April, where she will be guest performer with the Ice Crystal skating club's annual performance on April 14.
She's also set to perform in St. John's, Grand Falls-Windsor and in Corner Brook, according to Gary Osmond.
"I think a lot of people are excited for that time to come, she's accomplished a lot and she's got so many fans from here on the island," he said.
"We're all stoked to see her."
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and everyone back home in Canada! None of this would have been possible without you! —@kaetlyn_23
While some of us were silently urging Osmond to punch Comrade Bolshoi in the nose, the 22-year-old from Newfoundland regained her poise and did the polite Canadian thing. “I’m very happy that I made the podium and slowly closing the gap between . . .”
First gold, by the way, for the “Olympic Athletes from Russia” in Pyeongchang. Just sayin’. Bronze on top of team gold last week for Osmond. Just sayin’. Four medals for the Canadian figure skating squad. Just sayin’.
Yes, a pair of Russian teenagers had triumphed, gold and silver on Friday —though in upside-down order from what nearly everyone had expected. Yes, Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva were damn near untouchable with their ethereal “Don Quixote” and “Anna Karenina.”
In the most blissful moment of her life, a bronze medal in ladies’ figure skating at the Olympics , the jerk had to make it not about what Osmond had won but what she’d lost.
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA—The reporter, an obnoxious old hand from Soviet days, rendered Kaetlyn Osmond temporarily speechless: “Do you think the Russian women are invincible?”
She was just fine, with a commanding rendition of her “Black Swan” free routine, the only teensy defect an over-rotation on a triple Lutz. Most pristine version of the program Osmond has executed this season, though.
“They’re really strong and they’re really consistent. So, who knows. They’re just incredible. I can only do what I can do to try to . . . be better, I guess?”
She’d finished 13th in Sochi, at her debut Games. Has climbed steadily globally since then, currently the reigning world silver medallist.
They were popping Screech on The Rock, no doubt, and celebrating in Edmonton, which Osmond now calls home. Thrilled for this young woman, from coast to coast, after a career interrupted by a stress fracture in her ankle, a torn ankle and a horrifically broken femur; learning to walk again, really, before she could get back up on skates, sidelined for more than a year before retrieving her national title.
“I’ve been focusing on every small detail, every mental aspect, every physical trait of that program. Being able to come here, finally put up two clean skates, which I haven’t done in a really long time, it really means the world to me.”
But an Olympic medal, when she’d come so close to quitting the sport a few years back, surrounded now by audacious sprites and wraiths: priceless.
“My goal here was just to improve on that 13th-place finish. When I heard that I came third, I just reminded myself that that’s something I thought that I would never be able to do.”
Seven triples, three sets of combinations, including a triple Salchow/double toe/double loop and a triple flip/triple toe — triple-triples now the Sterling standard for elite women — top Level 4s on spiral and spin and step sequences for a free skate score of 152.15, 231.02 overall.
She’d thought, hoped, that participating in the team event — third for her short program contribution — would help banish the butterflies coming into Friday’s contribution. Had, like the rest of the skating team, retreated to Seoul in between, to double-down on training far from the Olympic maelstrom.
“For my short (on Wednesday) that worked. Today I was absolutely terrified all day. I was nervous. Usually I talk a lot. I didn’t talk very much today.”
Once she’d made it safely through her bugaboo triple loop, however, calm enveloped her. At the boards, coach Ravi Walia could sense it immediately.
“It’s a triple that she learned last, after the last Olympics,” he said. “She broke her leg and she came back and that’s when she got that jump. But for some reason, she’s struggled with it all season in the program. Once she did that, I knew it was going to be good.”
Personal-best good.
“She respects the other girls so much,” added Walia. “So she’s more excited to be skating with them and she doesn’t compare herself to them.”
That would be a tad masochistic, especially with the stupendous Russians. And stupefied might also describe 18-year-old Medvedeva, who hadn’t lost a competition in two years until she broke her foot in November, sitting out the Russian championships last March. Many had believed her simply unbeatable. Yet Zagitova, just 15, had been creeping up all season, edging her compatriot in the Grand Prix final in December and winning the short program competition here. While Medvedeva and Zagitova actually tied in Friday’s free skate segment, the younger girl emerged with gold on the strength of her world-record short, mere minutes after Medvedeva had bettered her own world record. It was that edgy close a thing: 156.65 each in the free, 239.57 to 238.26 overall. And when Medvedeva’s scores flashed on the board, her lovely face crumpled. Because she knew. What was to have been her Olympic moment had gone before it had arrived.
She is the superior skater, but Zagitova is a jumping genius. In practice this week, she reeled off a five-triple combination. That’s never been done.
By the time she got to the mixed zone, Medvedeva had her game face back on. “I felt today in my program really like Anna Karenina in the movie.” Which maybe was an omen — in the Tolstoy masterpiece, Anna throws herself under a train. “I put everything out there that I had. I left everything on the ice. I have no regrets.
“Honestly, I skated like in a fog, for the first time. It is because I realize that I am enjoying the process, these four minutes are historical and they only belong to me. The whole world is watching only me for those four minutes. My soul thrives on that feeling.”
Zagitova claimed afterwards she’d been shaking from head to foot, startled by her high score and still not quite believing that she was the Olympic victor. “I think I need some time to understand that I have won the Olympic Games.” Yet she remained slightly self-critical. “I would give me a four with a little plus (out of five) for my performance.’’
Some observers have been harsh with Zagitova — or at least her coaches — for stacking the deck by placing all her jumps in the second half of her programs, where they are rewarded with an automatic 10 per cent value added. Many have called for the rules to be changed to forbid it.
But that’s a debate for another day.
On this day, her greatness can’t be denied.
A day which Kaetlyn Osmond wished could go on and on and on . . .
“When I hit my ending position, I didn’t want it to end. I was just loving every single minute of it.”
