{"id":14326,"date":"2019-01-09T21:40:06","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T02:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=14326"},"modified":"2019-01-21T20:06:45","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T01:06:45","slug":"tarah-kayne-danny-oshea-we-are-going-in-to-win-nationals-and-make-the-world-team-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2019\/01\/09\/tarah-kayne-danny-oshea-we-are-going-in-to-win-nationals-and-make-the-world-team-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarah Kayne & Danny O’Shea: “We are going in to win Nationals and make the World team again.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Claire Cloutier, contributing writer for Figure Skaters Online
\nPhotos by Robin Ritoss from 2018 Internationaux de France and NHK Trophy<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The post-Olympic season has been a rebuilding year for Tarah Kayne and Danny O\u2019Shea. The couple once again came back from injury (a stress fracture to Kayne\u2019s knee<\/span><\/a>) and also changed coaches for the first time in their seven-year career. They now train with Dalilah Sappenfield in Colorado Springs. Despite the challenges, Kayne\/O\u2019Shea achieved considerable success this season, winning their first Grand Prix medal, as well as several medals at Challenger Series events. Looking toward Nationals, Kayne\/O\u2019Shea feel renewed and hopeful.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>We\u2019re both feeling pretty good heading into Nationals–healthy, confident, and excited to get there,\u201d said O\u2019Shea during a recent teleconference call with the media. \u201c<\/span>The physical and mental state is very different this year. With the main thing being, physically, we’re healthy, which has been the goal for a very long time, but has been elusive for a lot of our career so far. So, feeling healthy going into Nationals is a very comforting place to be. Not having to scramble and rely purely on mental toughness to overcome \u2026 a lack of physical training.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kayne agreed, saying there is a world of difference between where the couple is now, versus last year before Nationals. Last season, Kayne was returning from knee surgery on her patella tendon, and they were only able to compete at one event prior to Nationals. This fall, they\u2019ve been able to compete a full season. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>There\u2019s a huge difference. For me specifically, mentally and physically,\u201d said Kayne. She explained that last year, the couple had to scale back their difficulty on certain elements to accommodate her reconstructed tendon. \u201cWe were purposely trying to make our throws smaller to cut back the impact on my right knee and make it as safe as possible. Now, this season, I’m feeling so much healthier and stronger that we\u2019re working on making our throws bigger again.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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The couple said their transition to training in Colorado Springs has gone well. Kayne described training under Sappenfield as \u201cvery empowering.\u201d When they made the coaching switch, the couple was determined to commit themselves fully to the new system.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>With Dalilah, we started from scratch. We just came to her and let her mold us. Whatever she wanted us to do, we did,\u201d Kayne declared. \u201cBecause we didn’t want to get the same results we have always gotten. We wanted to improve. We want [the skating] to be bigger, we want it to be better, we want it to be faster. And that’s what you see from Dalilah’s teams. We let her take control, 100 percent.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s definitely been different,\u201d said O\u2019Shea. Prior to the switch, the team had trained with Jim Peterson\u2019s group in Florida for their whole career together. \u201cWhen you\u2019re with a coach for seven years as a team, things become second nature, almost. There’s been definite differences. Some took getting used to, some were very comfortable right off the bat. I think overall, it\u2019s been a positive for us. We\u2019re in a very good place physically right now, which is helping us be able to train hard.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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So Kayne and O\u2019Shea feel optimistic heading into Nationals. Yet, they also realize they have their work cut out for them in Detroit. With only one Worlds slot available for the U.S. pairs, it will no doubt be a hard-fought battle at Nationals. The couple are likely to need some of their best performances to claim that sole spot at the 2019 World Championships in Saitama, Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>I’m not going to lie. It\u2019s definitely on our minds,\u201d O\u2019Shea admitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kayne was measured as she spoke about the situation. \u201cIt’s a hard position to be in. I wish I wasn’t in this position. I would love to be walking into this and have a little wiggle room. But that’s not reality for us right now. I have to go in and do my job at Nationals to get to Worlds. And then [if Kayne\/O\u2019Shea are named to World team] I have to go to Worlds, and do my job at Worlds. To make sure that no one else is in this position again. And hopefully I can do that. Because I think we’re very capable, at this point in time, to accomplish that goal for ourselves and for the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>We have always gone into Nationals trying to skate our best,\u201d O\u2019Shea added. \u201cBut this year we know we have to do that–<\/span>and<\/i><\/span> we have to win. We’re going in to win Nationals and make that World team again. \"\"<\/a>And go to Worlds and start turning this around. We don’t want to have one spot for Worlds or one spot for the Olympics any longer,\u201d he said firmly.<\/span><\/p>\n

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With the goal of winning Nationals in mind, Kayne and O\u2019Shea have worked hard to polish and improve their skating, placing particular emphasis on their short program. At their fall competitions, Kayne\/O\u2019Shea tended to shine in the long program, typically pulling up in the standings after that segment. At Nationals, they want to make sure the short program is top-notch as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>We’ve been in this place so often in our career, where our short program is our weakness, but our long program is our strength,\u201d said Kayne. \u201cWe’re long program skaters; we know that. So, since [Internationaux de] France, we\u2019ve really, really worked a lot on our short program. And it is<\/i><\/span> feeling stronger; I’m feeling more confident. Because in the back of my head, I’ve always gone into short programs knowing: \u2018All right, I’m not good at this.\u2019 And I go into my long program thinking: \u2018I’ve got this. This is me.\u2019 We worked on turning that around, going into Nationals. We’ve put in a few really strong run-throughs recently that have started making us feel more confident.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>O\u2019Shea noted that the duo changed short programs midway through the season (to \u201cTurning Page\u201d by Sleeping At Last). \u201cSo, what you saw at the beginning was a very raw program,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has molded to us a lot better, and we’ve started to understand and feel the program as we’ve done more run-throughs of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The team has high hopes for the rest of the season. O\u2019Shea said that they gained confidence from their victory last season at 2018 Four Continents (their best international result so far). \u201cIt definitely helped us move forward and gain a little bit of momentum in our career,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it was nice to do that, and \u2026 with another American team\u00a0[Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc] on the podium with us. You start to feel like America, as a pairs community, is building together. And I think that the top American pairs can really start to change the stigma that American pairs aren\u2019t good enough. If we can keep this group healthy and continue to maintain, I think that we\u2019re good enough to compete with the rest of the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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But keeping healthy and injury-free remains a challenge for U.S. pairs. Along with the rest of the skating community, Kayne\/O\u2019Shea were dismayed to see fellow U.S. team Ashley Cain and Timothy LeDuc suffer a scary fall from a lift at Golden Spin in December, with Cain\u2019s head striking the ice. Although Cain is on the mend, the fall could have resulted in a major injury. And Kayne and O\u2019Shea are well aware of the risks of such pairs elements.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>Especially as a female \u2026 you know that’s a part of the risk you’re taking when you enter a pairs partnership and you put your life in someone else’s hands,\u201d Kayne said matter-of-factly. \u201cIce is slippery; things happen. And those types of mistakes happen every day. You could walk into a rink any day when pairs is happening and see a fall that would maybe not be on your head \u2026 but a lift could go down, a throw might go wrong. That\u2019s part of what you’re doing every day. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span>It did shake me a little bit, because I know Ashley, and I was worried for her and her health, and I wanted to make sure she was okay,\u201d said Kayne. \u201cAnd I was glad, when I saw it, that my skating day was done and I didn’t have to go back on the ice and skate any more [that day]. Because I think it would have been in the back of my head. We\u2019ve fallen from lifts before, I\u2019ve taken a lot of scary falls. But it’s skating, and you just get back up, and you keep going. I think most athletes, in whatever sport they do, you know you’re taking a risk. If you weren’t okay with accepting that risk, you wouldn’t be a good athlete.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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O\u2019Shea spoke of the responsibility that male pairs skaters feel toward their partners. \u201cI think something that is universal, across coaches teaching male pairs skaters, is that the number one job is to protect the girl. That is something that\u2019s always in the back of your mind. Sometimes, as a male pairs skater, you’re not 100 percent successful in protecting the girl. And it eats you up inside … because you have to know their safety is on you. Watching that [accident], I felt for both of them. I felt for Ashley, for her injury. But I also felt for Tim, in that situation, because you could see him trying to stop it from happening. The nature of the difficult lifts that we’re doing now in this sport is, sometimes, things get a little out of your control. It definitely was in the back of our minds for a couple days. But with that said \u2026 \u00a0we know that is always a risk. And you move on. I think questioning yourself is almost more dangerous than just going full out into things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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As they prepare to compete at U.S. Nationals, Kayne and O\u2019Shea will be looking to go full out in Detroit and win their second National title.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Claire Cloutier, contributing writer for Figure Skaters Online Photos by Robin Ritoss from 2018 Internationaux de France and NHK Trophy   The post-Olympic season has been a rebuilding year for Tarah Kayne and Danny O\u2019Shea. The couple once again came back from injury (a stress fracture to Kayne\u2019s knee) and also changed coaches for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14326"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14334,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14326\/revisions\/14334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}