BOSTON - Gabrielle Daleman's preparations for the world figure skating championships were far from perfect.

A nagging foot injury had her spending more time in physiotherapy than on the ice, and she was forced to withdraw from last month's Four Continents championships.

Thursday, Daleman bounced back to finish a best-ever eighth in the short program at the world championships, pumping her fists a couple of times with jubilation afterward.

"I've always had trouble with the short, so just to finally lay a clean short program, not only this year, but doing it that well and that confident was such a relief, I was so overwhelmed," she said of her celebration. "It wasn't just that I skated clean and I did my job, it was that I finally did it in front of basically a home crowd and all my hard work finally paid off."

The 18-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., reeled off three triple jumps en route to scoring 67.38 points.

American Gracie Gold is the leader going into Saturday's long program with 76.43 points. Anna Pogorilaya is second with 73.98, while her Russian teammate Evgenia Medvedeva was third with 73.76.

Alaine Chartrand of Prescott, Ont., fell on her double Axel and finished 17th.

Daleman has been dealing with plantar fasciitis since the Sochi Olympics, a chronic injury to the tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot. She also has arthritis and tendinitis in that same troublesome right foot, and it flared up shortly after the Canadian championships in January, her foot swelling to a balloon.

The next few weeks were more treatment than training.

"I was probably in physio six, seven days a week for about three hours doing exercises, heating, icing, everything I could," said Daleman. "I hate needles but I was doing acupuncture to get the swelling out."

She also used visualization to prepare.

"Not going to lie, probably spent a lot of money on YouTube. Dad might not be too happy with the phone bill from data," she said. "But I watched my programs from this past year. . . and that's what's really helped me, I think."

Canada hasn't won a world medal in women's singles since Joannie Rochette's silver in 2009.

Canadian ice dancers Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje are in the hunt for a medal later Thursday. The world silver and bronze medallists are in fourth place going into the free dance.