By Lori Ewing
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – When Deanna Stellato-Dudek retired from figure skating at age 17 with a world junior silver medal but a series of debilitating hip injuries, she never could have guessed the best was yet to come.
A chance exercise during a work retreat sparked a remarkable comeback 17 years later that has led the now 40-year-old Stellato-Dudek and Canadian pairs partner Maxime Deschamps to be top-ranked at this week’s ISU Grand Prix Final in Beijing.
“Passion,” as she likes to say, “has no age limit.”
“I have such a passion for it,” Stellato-Dudek told Reuters. “I look forward to going in the rink every day. I look forward to my recovery that I do at night. My favourite part is the day-to-day grind, improving and getting better and challenging yourself.
“When you’re younger, it’s just kind of what your parents drove you to, the activity that you did. If it was taken away from you, maybe then you would realise how much you loved it,” she added.
“But as an adult, you’re doing this because you love it, otherwise you just flat out wouldn’t do it.”
Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps are undefeated this season, winning their two Grand Prix assignments and defeating reigning world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara at the season-opening Autumn Classic.
Stellato-Dudek, a former singles skater for the United States, was working as a medical aesthetician when, during a work retreat exercise in 2016, was asked to answer: “What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?”
Without hesitation she said: “Win an Olympic gold medal.”
Stellato-Dudek returned home to Chicago, retrieved her old skates from her mother’s basement, and embarked on “Career 2.0,” combining 4:30 a.m. skating sessions with her 12-hour work days for the first few months.
Stellato-Dudek hopes her courageous career change can inspire others.
“When I decided that I wanted to do this, I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t do anything irrational. I had to prove to myself that if this was something I really wanted to do, I had to do something towards my goal every single day,” she said.
“I tried to metaphorically build a chain link fence and my goal was to never break the chain. So, even if on a Sunday, I couldn’t find any ice, I would stretch or do something to make me better for the next day towards this insane dream that I had.”
OLDER ATHLETES
She is not the only athlete to resurrect a career after long layoff. American gymnast Gabby Douglas recently announced a comeback after seven years away and is targeting the Paris Olympics.
Stellato-Dudek believes older athletes have advantages. She said she knows her body better now, and so takes better care of it.
She teamed up with Deschamps, who had eight different previous partners, after a tryout in 2019. They gelled almost instantly.
They have faced some stumbling blocks, including awaiting Stellato-Dudek’s release from the U.S. Figure Skating Association to compete for Canada, the COVID-19 pandemic that closed rinks in Quebec and hindered cross-border travel for almost a year, and a respiratory illness that hampered her for three months last season.
While they can compete for Canada internationally including at the world championships in March in Montreal – Deschamps’ hometown and their training base – Stellato-Dudek needs Canadian citizenship to compete at the 2026 Milan Olympics.
She is confident she will receive it in time. She will be 42, but not the oldest figure-skating Olympian. Britain’s Edgar Syers is the oldest Olympic medallist in the sport, winning bronze in pairs in 1908 with his wife Madge when he was 45.
Canada’s Eric Radford was the oldest skater at the 2022 Beijing Olympics at 37.
While the impetus of a comeback was the dream of Olympic gold, competing in Milan “at 42-years-old, having taken 17 years off, is an accomplishment in and of itself,” Stellato-Dudek said.
“If I put that on a resume from here on out, it’s going to be a pretty impressive line item. And a really good conversation starter.”
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
