The Winter Olympic Games are less than three months away in her hometown and Kathryn Kang would love to be competing for Canada. But as optimistic as the North Vancouver resident is, especially after placing fifth in ladies’ singles at last year’s national figure skating championships, she’s also a realist.

“It’s always in the back of my head, I mean I live in Vancouver so every day it’s like the Olympics, the Olympics, the Olympics,” says Kang, 20. “What a dream come true that would be, but I like to set my sights on the present for now. Anything can happen, but right now I just want to stay on the national team and hopefully go from there.”

The Canadian championships, Jan. 13 to 17 in London, Ont., will be one of the most important factors in the selection of Canada’s 2010 team. Kang will use next week’s B.C./Yukon Sectionals at Richmond’s Minoru Arenas to gauge where’s she at and what to focus her training on. Much of her recent training has been aimed at performance rather than jumps.

Improving to fifth from 13th the previous year at nationals, and earning a place on the national team, has given Kang a notable boost of confidence. She says being on the team is “very inspiring.”

Kang entered the 2009 championships without much fanfare or expectations. Seventh after the short program at the 2009 championships, her intent for the long program was to simply skate her best.

“I thought fifth was a long shot and it would be hard for me because I was also the last skater after a long, long wait,” she says. “But when I stepped on the ice I looked around at the cameras and all the crowd and said to myself, ‘This is why I love skating.’ I had a great performance, the crowd was amazing cheering for me, and it felt so great. It can be very nerve-wracking but that comes with skating so you have to learn to harness that. Yeah, I’m nervous, but it’s a good nervous and it’s going to help me.”

Kang is from an athletic family. Her two brothers are both successful hockey players, one at the Junior B level and another in U.S. college hockey. The siblings challenge one another—once or twice even doing the Grouse Grind for fun—but are generally supportive.

Kang was four years old when she laced up her first pair of skates.

“I’ve always loved skating,” she says, listing Michelle Kwan as one of her early childhood favourites.

Today her favourite skater is Yu-Na Kim, 19, who is the current world champion and the first (in 2009) female skater to surpass the 200-point mark under the International Skating Union judging system. Kim is the favourite to win the ladies’ singles title at the 2010 Olympic Games.

“She’s amazing,” Kang says of Kim. “She’s not only an incredible jumper but her performances are almost better than her jumps and that says a lot. She skates with such beauty and you can really tell she loves skating. And she’s also been able to overcome a lot (despite persistent back pain she placed third at the 2008 world championships).”

Kang, who admits to a weakness for shopping and fashion, has the same passion for skating as Kim. And she’s equally determined to find the consistency that will help her stay at the top of her sport as well as challenge for a spot if not a medal at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Kang trains daily at the B.C. Centre of Excellence in Burnaby with renowned coaches Joanne McLeod and Victor Kraatz. She calls McLeod “a master organizer” who knows her inside and out.

“Her technical expertise is phenomenal and she has a brilliant mind for things like artistic components,” she says. “Victor provides me with more of a mental aspect with his having been to worlds and the Olympics. A lot of times on the ice we’re just talking and it’s great to have that athlete perspective because he’s been through it all.”

Kang says she’s always tried to stay positive and is generally a happy, optimistic person but one who has always expected a lot of herself. Only in the last year, however, has she learned how instrumental psychology is to skating.

“It’s important to stay positive no matter how many times you don’t have a great skate because you can always come back,” she says. “And you can always take something positive away. I didn’t have a lot of success when I was younger but I always loved skating and there was no way I was going to give it up,” Kang says.

It helps too that Kang loves music—”anything great music with a good beat and beautiful contemporary”—probably as much as she does skating.

“Most people would be, ‘Oh, she loves jumping’ but actually I love the performance part of skating,” she says.

“When I’m able to get on the ice and put on any piece of music and be able to skate to it, to express myself through that movement, that’s my favourite.”

Being a high-level competitive figure skater comes with a price. Despite her outgoing nature, Kang doesn’t have much time for a social life and thus many of her friends are skaters. She’s particularly close to Jeremy Ten (third in mens singles at the 2009 Canadian championships). Both attended high school together and train together at the Centre of Excellence.

Kang is also attending Capilano University and hopes to transfer next year to the University of B.C. where she plans to enroll in international relations and law.

“I’m very interested in corporate and entertainment law so hopefully I will be able to pursue career in one of those fields,” she says.

B.C./Yukon Sectional Championships

•Connaught Skating Club is hosting the B.C./Yukon Sectional Championships Wednesday through Sunday at Minoru Arenas.

•Tickets: $5 per day or $15 for all of the championships, available at the door.