Jessica Cranton is celebrating a win 10 years in the making.
“I’ve been working towards this for a decade,” explains Cranton. “I knew that I wasn’t going to do another competitive cycle after this. Worlds was my ultimate goal. I had a really great team to help curate my performance and this moment to be everything I could ever dream of and ever wanted.”
The athlete from Belleisle, N.S., has just returned home after competing at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Turin, Italy. Team Canada brought home 116 medals, including the 33-year-old’s gold in the figure skating, singles, level 3 category.
“Every moment of it was perfect. Every breath felt just right. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life,” says Cranton. “I think the best part was looking up at the stands and seeing my family who had travelled to Italy to watch me.”
Cranton says the performance was also a tribute to how far she’s come.
“This was for the little me who never go the opportunity to do sport as a little girl. It was breathtaking,” she said.
Earlier that day, Cranton sat down and wrote a letter of encouragement to herself.
“I wrote about how I wanted things to feel. How I wanted to end my career. I just took that to the ice.”
Winning gold was ‘just a bonus,’ says Cranton.
“This is a sport where you lose more than you win. But the win for me is the friendships and the people this sport has given me. It was so much more than winning, but I’m very happy to have won,” she said.
Cranton travelled to Vancouver for her training. She feels that gave ‘her an edge’ going into the games, where she held her final spin for 12 rotations.
“I did everything clean. I held my spins, but most of all, I put my heart out there and I think you could really see that in my performance. Which is really funny, because off the ice, I’m not that graceful at all,” she said.
Cranton began her Special Olympic journey in 2014 while she was in her twenties. Before she joined, she says she struggled with anxiety and other mental health challenges. Special Olympics helped her gain confidence and a sense of belonging.
“Sometimes moving from a teenager into an adult when you have a disability is difficult. I was really looking for a space to belong,” she explains. “I spent a lot of my younger years trying not to be myself, trying to fit in, trying not to be different. Finding Special Olympics figure skating was the unravelling and becoming myself and not being afraid to be different.”
Cranton has one piece of advice for people considering participating in Special Olympics.
“The right people won’t mind that you have challenges. The right people will listen to your dreams and say ‘yes, let’s do this’. Being a part of Special Olympics isn’t just about sport; it’s about belonging and community. I know that sometimes it can feel scary to stand out in that way, but I promise you, it’s worth it.”
While Cranton is taking a break from competitive skating, her next goal is to write a children’s book about her skating journey.
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