With gold medals freshly around their necks, Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps didn’t miss a step during the figure skating off-season.
The Canadian pairs team leapt to the top at the world championship in Montreal where Stellato-Dudek became the oldest woman to win a world title last March.
But making figure skating history wasn’t enough – the 41-year-old has set her razor-sharp focus on lifting Olympic gold.
“There really has been no break, no time to reflect,” Stellato-Dudek said of her off-season as a world champion.
“It's just back to work, to the big goal that is the Olympics in February of 2026."
Despite representing Canada at worlds, Stellato-Dudek, who was born and raised in the U.S., can't compete at the Olympics without Canadian citizenship – something she’s still seeking but remains optimistic about securing before the 2026 Games in Milano-Cortina.
Stellato-Dudek has filed the necessary paperwork, and a petition on Change.org has garnered nearly 10,000 signatures.
There’s also precedent for figure skaters receiving Canadian citizenship before the Games, including Kaitlyn Weaver, Piper Gilles and Liubov Ilyushechkina.
“COVID really threw a wrench in everyone's plans and slowed everything down by years,” Stellato-Dudek said. “But I feel very confident that I'm going to get it before the Olympics, when I need to have it."
The pair, who teamed up in 2019, have shared that Olympic goal since the beginning of their partnership.
Stellato-Dudek, a former world junior silver medallist from Chicago, retired at 17 with a hip injury and returned to the sport 16 years later. She moved to Montreal and teamed up with Deschamps of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., to become the 32-year-old's ninth partner.
Just over a week after winning worlds, they were already back on the ice for Stars On Ice tours in Japan and Canada from late March to May.
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps returned to training in June, working on a brand new routine to prepare for the 2024-25 season – where they’ll be the team to beat.
Skate Canada high-performance director Mike Slipchuk used to encourage Stellato-Dudek with the words, “You're not defending anything, so you just keep pushing.”
“After worlds, she said, 'I guess I'm defending now,'” Slipchuk said. “So much for that philosophy that I had.”
But Deschamps insists going from hunters to the hunted hasn’t changed a thing in the pair’s approach to competition on the world stage.
“We are no different because what we did last spring was last spring, we have done it. It's gonna be ours forever," he said. "But now our goal is to beat ourselves."
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps debut their new programs at the Nebelhorn Trophy running from Thursday through Saturday in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Their short program features a remix of Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love,” while the free program includes four songs: "Siren’s Song" by Andrea Krux, "Lux" by Ryan Taubert and two pieces by David Flemming, Hans Zimmer and Jacob Shea.
Guided by coaches Josee Picard and Julie Marcotte, Stellato-Dudek said their goal was to be as innovative and original as possible within the required elements. They also made changes – adding transitions, introducing new themes and altering their list “to be more interesting.”
“It's really just to come out this year looking like a better version of ourselves from last year,” Stellato-Dudek said.
If Olympic gold is the end goal, Slipchuk believes the experience of defending their world title is a good thing.
“It puts more pressure on yourself, your expectations are higher, and you don't want to get beat,” he said. “But you know what? You have to kind of go through that. And it's good they're going to go through this the year out of an Olympics versus the year of Olympics, because the spotlight is that much brighter.”
WHERE TEAM CANADA STANDS
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps’ pairs gold highlighted a successful world championship in Montreal, Slipchuk said. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier also claimed ice dance silver, while Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha finished fifth, setting the team up well with the Olympics a year and a half out.
In singles, however, Canada needs to make strides to be competitive in Milan. Madeline Schizas, a 21-year-old from Oakville, Ont., placed a career-low 18th in the women’s competition.
In the men’s, Vancouver’s Wesley Chiu finished 17th and Roman Sadovsky of Vaughan, Ont., placed 19th. Without a top-10 result, Canadian men and women have only one spot each at worlds this season.
"We're optimistic that we can add an additional spot in both men’s and women’s competitions this year at worlds,” Slipchuk said. “But the fields are so deep now. We hope someone has that season and world championship performance to give us the best shot at the top 10.”
Schizas, also competing at the Nebelhorn Trophy, previously came close to the top 10, finishing 12th in 2022 and 13th in 2021 and 2023.
After a disappointing season, Schizas said she underwent a “very organized, very methodical” off-season with a focus on improving consistency.
“I came in knowing exactly what I was doing every day, which means I now have the reps to feel confident coming into the fall," she said.
Schizas performed a “Lion King” program during the Stars On Ice tour and, after encouragement from “big fan” Stellato-Dudek, has adopted it as her short program this season.
“She was like, ‘you should totally do it.’ So it was an easy choice for me,” Schizas said. “It's just a really joyful program, and I think a big step up in terms of choreography and maturity.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press