Lead image by Olga Chetvergova / iStock
By Dan Rubinstein
Photos by Skate Canada
Whether she’s on the ice or in the classroom, Katherine Medland Spence focuses on the process, not the outcome.
That mindset has paid tremendous dividends for the Carleton University chemistry student and elite figure skater.
Katherine Medland Spence
Last November at the Warsaw Cup, her first ever international competition, the 24-year-old Ottawa native won gold in a field of two dozen skaters, finishing first in both the short program and free skate for a total of 181 points — 10 more than the runner-up and local favourite from Poland, and the first gold in an international event for a Canadian female figure skater in six years.
“It was very exciting, the level of talent was really high,” Medland Spence said in an interview in late February, just two days after returning home from the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Seoul, South Korea — her second international competition (and second ever set of international flights).
“Even now, my success in Warsaw feels unreal. Did it actually happen?”
It most certainly did, as photographs of Medland Spence with a beaming smile and gold medal draped around her neck confirm.
And although she finished in 14th in Seoul — overcoming the onset of a stomach bug during her long program to earn a result that she anticipated and is satisfied with — the whirlwind of the last few months affirms that the process is working.
“Poland was an eye-opening experience,” said Medland Spence, who has worked with a mental performance coach for years. “I had no expectations in terms of placement. I just wanted to skate my best and trust my training. Winning gold was a great bonus.
“There’s no point worrying about how other people do and anything else that’s beyond my control. It’s better to use that energy to focus on what I can do to keep progressing.”
A Need for Speed
At age three, Medland Spence’s parents signed her up for a City of Ottawa learn-to-skate program. She loved skating fast.
Two years later, one of her instructors happened to be a figure skating coach at the Nepean Skating Club in the city’s west end and suggested that the little girl zooming around the ice give the sport a shot. Turns out she was a natural.
“I loved the sense of freedom,” said Medland Spence. “I’m more of an individual-sport than team-sport person. I really enjoy doing things on my own.
“Figure skating helped me develop confidence,” she added, “and figure out what I value in sports and in life.”
The countless hours that Medland Spence has devoted to practice and conditioning over the past two decades are now bearing fruit.
In addition to competing in Warsaw and Seoul recently, she also hit the ice at the Canadian National Skating Championships in January in Laval, Que., finishing third overall.
That means Medland Spence is an alternate for Canada at the World Figure Skating Championships coming up in Boston in late March. Even though it’s now the off-season, she has to continue training in case either of the country’s top-two women are unable to compete.
So she’s going to keep up with her off-ice workouts: swimming, dryland jumping, skating on the Rideau Canal (albeit in hockey skates) — and parking at Vincent Massey Park and walking across the new Rideau River pedestrian bridge to the Carleton campus.
Balancing School and Sport
Medland Spence started as a biochemistry and biotechnology major but switched to chemistry last year.
“It’s like a puzzle, trying to analyze data and figure things out,” she says. “I like that a lot, and I like the fact that it involves math but also has applications to health.”
Because she spends so much time skating, frequently in Toronto, Medland Spence is a part-time student. She’s developed a knack for self-directed learning and understands that strong time-management skills and being productive are essential.
“I have to be organized and efficient to be able to balance school and skating,” she says.
“I approach classes the same way I think about sports — to me, university is about understanding concepts and ideas, and not only about getting good grades. It’s about learning.”
Medland Spence has had some help along the way from her professors, including Jeff Smith, who has taught two of her chemistry courses.
“Katherine missed 75 per cent of the lectures because she was commuting back and forth to Toronto but managed to not miss a single class milestone,” said Smith.
“She self-learned the material from my posted lecture notes and came to my office hours organized with specific questions to clarify her understanding. She is a world-class athlete and a wonderful student with exceptional executive functioning skills whom I have deep admiration for.”
An admiration that deepened when she shared a photo of herself standing atop the podium in Poland.
