KARLY Robertson is surely the epitome of persistence. Seven consecutive times the figure skater finished in second place at the British Championships before she made the breakthrough last year, becoming national champion for the first time.
Next week, the 26-year-old will defend her title, with the championships beginning on Tuesday, but being the favourite is a very different situation from being the underdog. The Dundonian is unfazed at the prospect, however.
“I’m looking forward to it but it feels a little bit different going in as defending champion,” admits Robertson. “It was very emotional to win last year after being runner-up so many times – there were lots of tears and it was such a different feeling from the previous years when I’d finished second.
“But, at the end of the day, this year’s competition is just another event and you have to concentrate on putting down a good performance. I always go into competitions focusing on trying to better my personal best score rather than anyone else.”
Robertson hopes that a successful defence of her British title will be a stepping-stone towards selection for Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics which will be in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The Scot was reserve for the British team for last year’s Olympics in Sochi and being within touching distance of a spot on the plane to Russia was both a positive and a negative.
“I had mixed emotions last year – I was over the moon to be picked as the reserve but it was disappointing too because obviously I’d have loved to have had the opportunity to compete,” she says. “I was back at home watching the Games on the television – in some ways, it was hard to watch it because I felt like it could have been me but I loved watching all the skaters that were there.
“Being so close to making the team definitely gave me a boost though – it really gave me something to work towards.”
Robertson was born and brought up in Dundee and by a bizarre twist of fate, the city is now home to one of the pre-eminent figure skating hubs in the UK. English husband and wife team, Simon and Debi Briggs, have been in Dundee for 15 years and have produced multiple Olympians including the now retired Jenna McCorkell who had pipped Robertson to the British title each of the seven times the Scot finished second.
It is obvious how much Robertson enjoys being part of the Briggs’ squad and she is convinced that the strength in depth of her training group has caused her own performance level to rocket.
“We have such a good squad in Dundee – we’re all really good friends and we work very well as a team,” she says.
“We push each other all the time – there’s great motivation within the group and it’s great to have that competition in the rink where everyone wants to do better than everyone else.
“It’s been a great environment for me, I learnt a lot from Jenna and she’s been really good for my motivation.
“You always want to be number one so it was good to have that competition there.”
Despite being Britain’s best figure skater, Robertson receives no funding and so works part-time in Tesco to finance her training and competition schedule. It may not be glamorous but combining her job with training is a necessary evil.
“I often do 15-hour days to fit everything in,” she says. “While it is tough, I think it’s made me who I am today and it’s made realise that every minute you’re on the ice is so important.
“I’ve been looking for sponsorship but there just seems to be no one who wants to commit so without my family’s help, I couldn’t be doing this. The long days are hard but the toughest part is the financial strain so it would make everyone’s life a lot easier to have some help.
“It would lift a weight off my shoulders if someone was willing to sponsor me but I try to put the financial pressures out of my head – you can’t have distractions because it takes your focus away from your training.”
THE next Winter Olympics may be more than two years away but Robertson already has an eye on the 2018 Games and admits she is desperate to make the team this time around after being so close last year.
“Getting to Pyeongchang is definitely one of my ultimate goals – it would really mean the world to me to make it to the Olympics,” she says.
“At the moment, I’m the front-runner for the team but everyone is out there trying to get to an Olympics and there are so many good girls in Britain now as well as a lot of young girls coming through.
“I’m very harsh on myself so I never tell myself that I’m any good, but I think that’s quite a good attitude to have because it means that I’m always trying to improve.
“My coach tells me that I’m too hard on myself but I just feel like I’ve got so much more potential and that I’ve got so much more to give so that really pushes me to work harder.”
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