Ashley Cain with her family on the ice, being held in the air by her dad, Peter.
When Ashley Cain and partner Timothy LeDuc headed to China for their Olympic debut at the Olympic Winter Games 2022 Beijing, Cain had one huge advantage over nearly every other athlete.
She had her dad there with her.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, spectators were severely limited, and as a result, most athletes' families didn't make the trip to China.
Cain, however, is coached by her father, Peter Cain, so she had her number one support system with her on the world's biggest stage.
"My dad got to be there, and he's been there since day one, and has seen everything, knows my career, knows how I operate and he got to be there at the highest level with me," Cain said. "I felt very fortunate for that."
Peter himself is also an Olympian, competing in pairs for Australia with his sister Elizabeth at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid. He was also part of the torch relay for the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney, and was the assistant technical specialist on the pairs technical panels for the team and individual events in Sochi in 2014.
Reaching the Olympic stage meant even more to Ashley because it meant fulfilling something of a family legacy. On their last day in Beijing, Ashley and Peter walked around the Olympic village together, reflecting on the years of hard work paying off.
"I grew up around a legacy in the Olympics and that Olympic energy," Ashley said. "The Olympics has really been a big part of our life for a long time, and I wanted to be able to have that opportunity to compete in it and share in that legacy with my dad. And so obviously this year he got to go, not only as a coach, but as a father, and so I think we were just really lucky in that situation."
Ashley's mother, Darlene, was also a skater, competing in ice dance for Canada, and it was only a matter of time before Ashley made it onto the ice as well. She skated for the first time at age 2 on the Rideau Canal in Canada and began Learn to Skate classes at 4.
"I don't think it was necessarily that we wanted both of the kids to skate," Peter said, referring to Ashley and her brother Brenden. "It was just kind of a natural thing. We tried to put both of them in other sports, but Ash kept coming back to skating. We tried to put her into soccer and different things. She just preferred to put on a skating dress and be pretty and would interpret everyone's programs."
While Ashley undoubtedly had an Olympic pedigree, it took some time for her skill to develop. But Peter adamantly claims that he always knew she had that Olympic potential.
"I'll always say yes, but everyone else told me no. And now they're eating cake," he said, laughing. "I saw the progression, and the love for the skating, and the willingness to learn. That willingness just outweighs everything. They always say hard work can beat talent. Well, that's what happened. She did have the talent, obviously. Coming from skating parents, the talent level was there. It was just bringing it out."
As she began taking lessons, Ashley tried going to other coaches, but decided that she only wanted to learn from her dad.
"I always say that my dad was my first pairs partner," she said. "I felt so much comfort being with my parents in a lesson, and I really respected what they had to say. And as a kid and as a teenager, you don't always know the extent of what your parents go through to make your dreams possible, but as I've become an adult, I really respect the energy and time that they put into my career to have taken me all the way to the Olympic Games, but to also have prioritized the relationship that we have off the ice and making sure that's just as healthy."
Indeed, being a parent and child with a coach/athlete relationship could be a tricky situation to navigate, but the Cains have done it with ease. Skating was always left at the rink unless Ashley wanted to watch video or ask questions at home. Otherwise, business was business and home was home. Period.
"From the very beginning, I always said as soon as we get off the ice and leave the rink, that's it for skating. The rest of the time, it's family time," Peter said. "When we left the rink, that was it. It could've been a good day, it could've been a bad day, but as soon as I walked out of the door, that was it. I didn't want to talk about it."
"I think it's a very unique situation," Ashley added. "A lot of times, it can't work if it's not with the right people, but I feel like we really respect each other's boundaries, and we also respect what the other one has to say. So I've always felt that I had a voice in my career, and that it wasn't overshadowed, and I think that that really helps the relationship between us because I felt like I had power in it as well. I think those healthy boundaries just made it so I could go home and feel like I had a safe space of having my home life, and then coming to the rink and feel like I could learn as much as I could from them."
With the learning has also come a lot of fun. Peter never wanted training to feel laborious, so the team found ways to always keep things interesting. Peter would always quote Ted Lasso to Ashley and LeDuc before they took the ice at competitions and would sometimes wear tiny hands on his fingers during lessons. The group was also constantly pranking each other.
It was an environment that facilitated a father/daughter relationship that has been infused with joy.
"We're able to be in a competition or a camp or something like that, and we could finish the day and then go have dinner together," Ashley said. "No matter how the day went or how the competition went, we were always able to come back together and go out to dinner and just be enjoying each other's space."
They still spend plenty of time together outside of skating, and Ashley is now part of the Cains' coaching team full time. As Ashley has stepped away from the ice, both father and daughter admit that it's odd moving into a new chapter and Ashley hopes to find new ways to learn from and spend time with her parents.
"I'm trying to get her to pick up golf, but y'know," Peter said, laughing.
"I find it so boring," Ashley said, laughing as well. "Maybe one day. We'll get there."
