A close shot of 17-year-old Canadian figure skater Kaetlyn Osmond performing a high kick at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships has turned controversial.

Globe and Mail Public Editor Sylvia Stead quickly declared it “not acceptable” and explained why in a column by midday Monday.

Globe Photo Editor Dennis Owen amplified that sentiment.

“I would not have done it myself,” Owen told Maurie Sherman, KISS 92.5’s senior producer of the Roz & Mocha Show.

“It’s not our policy to run photos like that.”

The skater herself said in a Twitter post: “Reaction to photo: it’s not a bad pic. It could have been better, it also could have been worse. I’m excited to be on the cover pic isn’t bad.”

The Globe, the Toronto Star’s Steve Russell and Reuters all shot the same moment of Osmond’s routine. The Globe’s picture appeared on its front page Monday, the Star’s picture appeared online only on Sunday and the Reuters’ photograph moved on its wire Sunday but as a full-length picture of a high kick.

Osmond wowed the crowd at her first world championships and earned Canada two spots for women at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Skate Canada said Monday.

Before she boarded a plane this morning for Edmonton, Osmond told Sherman: “I don’t mind the picture that much. It’s part of my program. Our skirts go flying all the time, so we’re used to it. We don’t find it that offensive.”

It’s just a very bad choice for a number of reasons, 2002 Canadian junior champion Lauren Wilson told the Star.

“I don’t feel it’s a very tasteful photo. They could have picked another fun photo that protects her youth. She’s 17 years old.

“I’m sure it’s an innocent mistake but I don’t think they need to objectify her,” said Wilson, now the head coach of the Ryerson University varsity figure skating team.

As a skater, the outfit “is just your uniform,” she said. As a coach, you try to avoid “what we call a crotch shot. It’s not the most tasteful move in the program.”

Osmond “is an amazing jumper, she’s such an athletic skater,” said the former champion, who was celebrated in 2002 for her own jumps as a skater.

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The moment captured by the picture, Wilson said, “could have been cropped differently or portrayed in a different way.”

In a column about the photograph, Stead admonished editors to “ask yourself if you would want yourself pictured this way. Greater care needs to be taken on the front page than any other.”