Few things in the volatile world of men’s figure skating are assured, but Kevin Reynolds smiled and virtually guaranteed one element to his performance when he hits the ice in seven days from now at the Sochi Winter Olympics.
His short program staple — the hard rock strut of AC/DC’s Back in Black and Thunderstruck— will be part of his musical accompaniment.
You can be certain that a handful of quadruple jumps will be in the mix, too.
This weekend the 23-year-old Coquitlam native leaves for the Russian resort city, with the necessary confidence and strut required as the Olympics kick off Feb. 6 with the men’s team short program.
“I’m looking forward to the whole experience but I think walking into the opening ceremonies will be special, and hearing my name called to the ice, representing Canada — that’s what I’ll be looking forward to,” Reynolds said Wednesday in Burnaby.
“I think this is probably the best opportunity I’m going to get to do as good as I can at the Olympic Games. I want to take that moment and do the best I can.”
Landing in Sochi is the culmination of a career-long dream. But landing, period, became an issue this past fall as Reynolds battled through an awkward skate boot issue.
Replacing his worn-out boots proved to be elusive — Reynolds’ narrow AA-sized heels couldn’t find a good match. Without a proper fit, his feet couldn’t get the proper lift-off for what has become his skating mainstay — the quadruple.
As one of just three skaters to land a quad-triple-triple combo in competition, Reynolds’ Olympic hopes appeared to rest on the sole of a boot.
Most frustrating of all, it came on the heels of a personal breakthrough, where the red-headed skater had won the 2013 Four Continents championship in Japan.
A footwear solution was found in time for Canadian national championships earlier this month, and with them the tools to secure his third national silver medal.
His performance took a huge leap forward and locked the 5-10 skater onto the Olympic team.
“Going into the national championships I was feeling, let’s say less than confident with how everything was going,” he said. “Since then and since those performances I’ve been able to get back to training and just run the solos over and over again. That’s what I really need, to get [that] consistency for this week.”
A Russian winter may be a synonym for a dark, bleak period, but Canada’s skating ranks aim to inject some Red and White onto the medal podium, with national champion Patrick Chan leading the way.
“I think it will be definitely different from the Vancouver Games where we had that hometown advantage,” Reynolds noted. “This will be a completely foreign environment, but we’re not strangers to that. We’ve pretty much all been to Russia before so we’re a little bit familiar with the environment … [We] come in as one of the strongest teams there, we have the largest figure skating team actually with 17 athletes on record.”
Reynolds says missing out on the Vancouver Olympic experience — where he was listed as an alternate — has served him well in the run-up to Sochi.
“It was definitely the fuel in my fire for the [past] four years, knowing I came so close,” he said. “At the same time, I knew I had the ability to be there and now my opportunity has finally come. I had a breakthrough season last year and it’s given me the confidence to know that not only can I participate in the Games, but also do enough there to aim for a medal.”
Like many elite-level athletes, Reynolds’ original spark for the Olympiad was initially ignited in watching someone else achieve their dream, and how that reverberated across the country.
“I remember watching Donovan Bailey win the 100-metre dash in the 1996 (Atlanta) Games and seeing the excitement when he won and how Canada really supported him after that,” Reynolds recalled. “I knew I wanted to take part in the Olympics after that. I didn’t know what I would be doing — I was skating and [playing] hockey at that point, but I knew I wanted to take part in an Olympics someday.”
Which brings us to the present.
While the competition remains the focal point for the athletes, recent concerns over security in Sochi have raised a couple of red flags for participants and spectators. Reynolds notes that it’s on people’s minds and his family will take it in from the comforts of Coquitlam.
“The cost is a little bit prohibitive and I think, a little bit of the security concerns for them, but they are just not big travellers in general. I know they are behind me 100 per cent and they’ll be watching on TV all the way.”
They’ll be watching to see his signature five quad jumps — two in the short, three in the free — and be a huge part of his global cheering section. Helping him reach this pinnacle are Burnaby’s Centre of Excellence coach Joanne McLeod and choreographers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Lori Nichol.
Upon his arrival in the Olympic village, Reynolds will tackle the next few challenges with grit and grace. But there’s no denying that this is something amazing.
“Of course, it’s an Olympic Games, right? It’s probably the most pressure filled [competition], but also I guess the most memorable experiences I’ll ever have so I’ll take it all in but at the same time I have a job to do,” he said. “I’m going to treat the competition itself as any other competition.”
