Figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek and her partner Maxime Deschamps practice at an arena in Sainte-Julie, Quebec on Oct. 24.Stephanie Foden/The Globe and Mail
“Maturity is a plus, not a minus.”
It’s one of several confident zingers that Deanna Stellato-Dudek delivers while sharing her fascinating story.
She’s a 40-year-old pairs figure skater aiming to compete for Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics. It’s an Olympic dream she left unrealized when she retired from the sport at age 17.
The Chicago native was a silver medalist at the 2000 junior world championships in women’s singles for the United States, but then quit because of injuries. She moved on with life – finished high school and began a career as a medical aesthetician.
Once in her early 30s, she suddenly left that thriving career in 2016 to become a skater again, with a precise goal in mind.
“I was super clear when I first put those skates back on,” Stellato-Dudek recalled to The Globe and Mail earlier this month. “I went in that first day with the intention of coming back and making the Olympics.”
Today, that journey is in full throttle. She and 31-year-old Montrealer Maxime Deschamps are Canada’s top pair – a partnership that has grown since they auditioned together in 2019. They’ve earned a national title and a handful of international medals. Their first competition of the ISU Grand Prix season is this weekend, Skate Canada International in Vancouver.
From the left: Josée Picard, Maxime Deschamps and Deanna Stellato-Dudek discuss a routine during a practice session.Stephanie Foden/The Globe and Mail
The discipline has been long dominated by young athletes – jumping, spinning, twisting – those fearless enough to be thrown through the air on blades and fit enough to keep working every day. “The next oldest competitor is like 24,” she says with a laugh.
As an adult, she learns quicker and has better body awareness now than she did as a teen. She talks on a different level with coaches now, too: “We’re all sharing input, versus being coached the way I was when I was a kid. Now I don’t need to be told what to do.”
She has lots of supporters. Yet she notices naysayers, too, mainly on social media, with their biting critiques – those who don’t know her but assume a 40-year-old figure skater must have limitations.
“I have a fair share of people who are vehemently against me and will say unkind things about me,” she said. “I’m on a personal mission to prove to those people that not only can I do it that at this age, but I can be competitive. I’m not just going to be there. I’m going to be on the podium.”
It was at a work retreat in 2016 when she had the ah-ha moment that compelled her to retrieve the skates from her mother’s basement after 16 years. During an activity with co-workers, Stellato-Dudek had to answer the question: “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
Her answer: “Win an Olympic gold medal.”
“It’s all I thought about on my car drive home,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe what I said.”
She was in the thick of a successful career. Working for a plastic surgeon, she ran the non-surgical side of his business, which included procedures such as photo facials and cool sculpting. She built it from its beginnings into a seven-figure business.
Could she return to figure skating? Her teen years in the sport had taken place in a different time, when the 6.0 scoring system was still in use, during a heyday for women’s singles with stars such as Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya. On top of her world junior silver medal, Stellato-Dudek had won the ISU Junior Grand Prix final in the 1999-2000 season.
In the years since her retirement she kept in great shape with pilates, running and weights. During her first day back on skates after 16 years, her double jumps came right back. For three months, she skated early four mornings a week before work, plus every Saturday. Eventually, she took a few vacation days to go consult her old coach, Cindy Watson Caprel, in Florida.
The coach said she looked like a skater returning from an injury leave of a few months, not someone who hadn’t worn skates in a decade and a half. Other U.S. coaches were there and recognized Stellato-Dudek. One suggested that the five-foot skater try pairs – an idea she’d declined as a teen, but on this second go-round, she was up for anything.
“You have to be a special kind of girl to enjoy getting thrown around, having to land things, and getting lifted very high in the air,” she said. “So I tried it, and man, I absolutely loved it.”
Deanna Stellato-Dudek ties her skates before practice.Stephanie Foden/The Globe and Mail
Stellato-Dudek did competitive gymnastics as a kid, so memories of flying high and being upside down felt familiar. She decided to skate full time and quit her job. She moved to Florida to partner with Nathan Bartholomay, who had skated for the U.S. at the 2014 Olympics.
They competed together until early 2019, when Bartholomay got injured. Stellato-Dudek didn’t have seasons to wait while he recovered, so they separated amicably. She worried about finding a new partner because of her age.
“I was like 36, 37 then, and every guy was inevitably going to be younger than me,” she recalled. “They’d have to make a choice about skating with me.”
A coach recommended Deschamps, a Canadian who had worked with eight partners. They gelled quickly and Stellato-Dudek cancelled her other tryouts. She was impressed by his explosive power on the ice and his passion to keep going.
“I thought ‘how did I not know about this guy’,” she recalled. “And ‘why hasn’t he already won worlds?’”
Stellato-Dudek moved to Montreal to train with him, and they researched both her getting Canadian citizenship and him becoming a U.S. citizen. The Canadian option sounded more promising so they began the process. She’s hoping for the Canadian passport before the 2026 Olympics.
Shortly after they teamed up, there was the pandemic, which interrupted their competitions and training. They’ve faced other hurdles, too: awaiting her release from the U.S Figure Skating Association, and overcoming illnesses.
“I could have thrown in the towel, but I still had unfinished business,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave again with that same feeling.”
The landscape of pairs skating changed after the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Some top Canadian pairs retired or split up. Russian competitors were banned because of the war in Ukraine. The stage was set for new pairs to push onto podiums. Deschamps and Stellato-Dudek, who are coached by Josée Picard, took gold at the Nebelhorn Trophy, silver at Skate America, gold at the Grand Prix de France. They were fourth at the Grand Prix final, won the 2023 nationals in Oshawa, and were fourth at the world championships.
Deschamps tosses Stellato-Dudek during a practice session.Stephanie Foden/The Globe and Mail
The 2023-24 season is under way. Montreal will hold the world championships in March. They must get keep getting faster and more technically impressive to remain Canada’s top team and contend for medals. Stellato-Dudek likes the technical details – she hopes to become a figure skating judge someday.
“When people see them this year, they’ll notice an even stronger team,” said Mike Slipchuk, high-performance director at Skate Canada. “They were close last year, knocking on the door of a world medal.”
Their short program to Oxygene from Cirque du Soleil celebrates French-Canadian culture. Their free skate to Interview With a Vampire tells a tumultuous story in which Stellato-Dudek portrays the vampire and bites Deschamps, prompting a costume reveal mid-skate. She researched with vampire books, films and TV shows. She says her storytelling on ice has improved as she’s matured.
“I am a woman, I have been in love, I have had heartbreak and tumultuous relationships,” Stellato-Dudek said. “I can bring that life experience to my art on the ice.”
While a quick warmup was fine in the teen years, she considers a full-hour warmup before skating now “not negotiable”. She does extra stretching at home at night, takes epsom-salt baths and uses the cold plunge in her apartment building. She works hard on the mental part, too.
“When you’re really tired, your body can still do it, it’s your mind that doesn’t want to,” said Stellato-Dudek, who uses motivational videos and works with a sports psychologist. “You’ve got to find a way to rise above and it and get yourself to do it anyway.”