montrealgazette.com
Summarize this content to 100 words:
Deanna Stellato-Dudek Age:
42
Hometown:
Park Ridge, Ill.
Event:
Pairs figure skating
Maxime Deschamps
Age:
34
Hometown:
Pointe-Claire
Event:
Pairs figure skating
Stellato-Dudek’s comeback story is among the most incredible in modern figure skating history and in sports in general.
The hope is that she can keep her Olympic dream alive after a recent injury.
She was a 17-year-old teen phenom from a Chicago suburb aiming to represent the U.S. at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics until injuries forced her to hang up her skates for 16 years. Twenty-four years later, she’s finally getting the chance to fulfill her dream.
In January, Stellato-Dudek was selected for Canada’s Olympic team. At 42, she could become the oldest woman in Games history to compete in a figure skating event.
“Because of my age, people always say time is ticking for me,” she said in an Olympics.com documentary. “Make no mistake, I’m going to do everything it takes to win. Because I want to be an Olympic champion.”
After an up-and-down season for Canadian figure skating last year, Stellato-Dudek and her partner, Maxime Deschamps, were one of the country’s top hopes in the discipline.
But first she will have to overcome an injury once again. On Monday,
the Canadian Olympic Committee announced Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps will not be competing in the figure skating team event. Her condition for the individual pairs event is being assessed on a day-to-day basis, the committee wrote. The pairs event takes place on Feb. 15.
A former singles skater,
Stellato-Dudek
paired with Deschamps in 2019, and the two haven’t looked back, winning their third straight Canadian title last year and a world championship in 2024.
The world title, which came at the Bell Centre in Montreal,
made her the oldest woman to win a world title in figure skating in any discipline.
“Can I get a quote beside the record book? It’d be like, ‘40 is the new 20,’ ” Stellato-Dudek told the Canadian Press. “It’s something I carry with pride. … I hope it encourages people to not stop before they’ve reached their potential.”
She won silver at the 2000 World Junior Championships and was envisioning being at the Salt Lake City Olympics two years later, until a series of hip injuries forced her to retire.
Then, while on a team-building exercise during a business retreat in 2016, she was asked, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Her first thought was winning an Olympic gold medal. She called her mother to ask if she still had her figure skates and started training two weeks later. She won bronze at the U.S. championships in pairs in 2018 and 2019, then came to Quebec seeking a new partnership when her old one dissolved.
“Canada embraced me,” said Stellato-Dudek, who received her Canadian citizenship, opening the path to the Olympics.
She met Deschamps and was won over by his skill and drive. He had gone through eight partners, but never gave up his quest for gold. He is open about his battles with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, which can make it hard for him to concentrate.
“It’s not always easy to skate with me,” he said. “Sometimes my brain isn’t there.”
The wins have come at a cost for Stellato-Dudek.
Intense training
has meant sacrificing relationships, careers and starting a family.
Most days, she is in pain. When she trains on Friday, “I’m still sore on Monday,” she said.
Given the chance to do it over, “I would choose them all again,” she said.
The duo, who are based in Vaudreuil-Dorion, face an uphill climb. They unexpectedly failed to win gold at the 2026 Canadian National Skating Championships on Jan. 10 after an error-filled free skate. Stellato-Dudek revealed afterward she was sick and unable to keep food down.
There is strong competition in international pairs skating this year, but a medal is still considered within their grasp. Ontario’s Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud, who won the Canadian Nationals in January, are also competing in the pairs event. They will take the place of Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps in the pairs portion of the teams event.
Canada was shut out of figure skating medals at the 2022 Olympics for the first time since 1984. It is one of Canada’s most successful Winter Olympic sports, with 29 medals.
This year, hope resides in the ice dance competition, where Canada will be represented by three duos. Quebec will be represented by Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha and the husband-and-wife team of Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac, while Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier are based in Ontario. Stephen Gogolev of Toronto is competing in men’s singles, while Madeline Schizas of Oakville, Ont., will skate in women’s singles.
Josée Picard, Stellato-Dudek’s former coach, told olympics.com she’s betting on her student.
“Deanna, she’s got a character, an attitude that shows people around the world that anything is possible if you put in the work and dream of something that’s bigger than life.”
The pairs competition takes place on Feb. 15 and 16.
RBruemmer@postmedia.com
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