Osmond’s comeback continues with second in short program at Skate Canada

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — It seems like Kaetlyn Osmond has already endured a career’s worth of injuries at just 20 years old.

But the two-time Canadian champion is feeling better than she has in years, and was second in the women’s short program Friday at Skate International, writing her comeback story with three huge triple jumps in a powerful skate to Edith Piaf’s “Sous le Ciel de Paris.”

The Marystown, N.L., native scored 74.33 points to top her previous best score set way back at the 2013 world championships.

Evgenia Medvedeva, the 2016 world champion, is the leader going into Saturday’s long program with 76.24, while Russian teammate Elizaveta Tuktamysheva is third.  

Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., is sixth.

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Osmond, who burst onto the skating scene with a bronze medal at the 2012 Canadian championships when she was just 16, was sidelined for the 2014-15 season with a gruesome broken leg. Her broken fibula required a plate and seven screws to stabilize. 

She was shaky in her comeback last season, finishing 11th at Skate Canada last year, falling four times in her long program.

“I think it shocked me a little bit,” she said, on the difficulties of her comeback. “Definitely last year at Skate Canada it hit me a little hard the way that I competed. But it was an eye-opener and it did prove to me that it isn’t going to be easy. I knew I had a long road ahead of me.

“Now that I’ve got that under my belt, I got the training under my belt, I feel a lot better this year.”

Osmond, who won Skate Canada in 2012, would require two surgeries on her leg, the second to remove the kitchen drawer’s worth of hardware. There were times, she said, she wondered if she’d ever be back at top form.

“When I was at my complete worst, it was a question of would I be able to come back,” she said. “But since I’ve been back and since I’ve been able to perform again and to practise great again, it’s never been a doubt in my mind as to why I came back.

“Each day I find something new to love about this sport that I never would have known if I didn’t go through everything I did.”

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press

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