Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deshamps practice in Milan on Friday ahead of Sunday’s short program.Fabrizio Troccoli/The Globe and Mail
Pairs figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek, who was forced to pull out of the team event after suffering a head injury just days before she was due to leave for Milan, said the last 10 days have been a “living nightmare that I would not wish on anybody.”
However, she said she now feels fully recovered and is ready to compete in Sunday’s short program.
On Friday morning, Stellato-Dudek appeared for the first time since news broke just before the Games that she had been in an accident while training in Quebec. The 42-year-old, who is set to become the oldest woman to compete in Olympic figure skating in nearly 100 years, skated in a 30-minute practice with her partner, Maxime Deschamps.
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Stellato-Dudek looked strong on the ice, landing a double Axel, a throw triple loop jump and a triple toe loop during the session. However, she struggled with her triple Salchow and the team did not perform their assisted backflip during a run-through of the short program. Afterwards, Stellato-Dudek confirmed that they have decided to remove the trick from the program.
Although she did not mention Lindsey Vonn by name – the American alpine skier who suffered a serious crash soon into the women’s downhill event on Sunday – Stellato-Dudek said the decision was partly influenced by seeing some serious injuries that have already played out at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
“We just wanted to take out any unnecessary risk. Everything else in skating is pretty much upright. That’s the only thing that goes upside down,” she said.
The backflip is not a required element, but the duo would have been the first pairs team to perform the move since it became legal again in Olympic competition.
Skate Canada has released few details about the nature of her injury and on Friday morning, the skater also declined to elaborate. Stellato-Dudek said she does not have a concussion.
“I’m not going to get into specifics. It has been less than 10 days. I myself have not processed what happened. From the moment the accident occurred, the only focus was tunnel vision on how can I get here,” she said.
Stellato-Dudek said she has been able to train since the accident and was only off the ice for three days. She added that her doctors have described her recovery as “remarkable.”
Healthwise, Stellato-Dudek said, “I feel totally fine. I feel like nothing happened.”
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“She’s fully normal, I can tell,” Deschamps said, chuckling. He added that the last week and a half has been difficult, “seeing that the dream was slipping,” but said he always believed in Stellato-Dudek and that he himself has been training hard during her recovery.
Stellato-Dudek said that after Skate Canada announced the accident, she has been inundated with messages of support.
“I received thousands of messages from people all around the world, saying that they were lighting a candle for me and praying for me, and I also believe that that is what got me here,” she said.
Stellato-Dudek said her doctors described her recovery as ‘remarkable.’Fabrizio Troccoli/The Globe and Mail
Stellato-Dudek arrived in Milan on Thursday and says that she keeps finding herself crying every time she sees the rings: “It’s very emotional to be here. I mean, when I set out on this journey in 2016, not one person told me I would make it to the Olympics ... to know me is to know I wasn’t going down without a fight.”
The skater’s remarkable comeback story has made headlines around the world. Born in Illinois, Stellato-Dudek began her career as a competitive figure skater for the United States, but a hip injury forced her into retirement in 2000 when she was still a teenager. After more than 16 years off the ice, Stellato-Dudek was at a work retreat playing a team-building exercise when she was asked to answer the question: What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
She immediately said she would win an Olympic gold medal.
Shortly after, Stellato-Dudek quit her job and moved to Florida to begin training. She joined Deschamps a few years later and moved to Montreal to train. The pair won the World Figure Skating Championships in 2024 and the national championships three times.
Although they have struggled the last two seasons, the pair is capable of achieving scores that would land them on the podium.
Stellato-Dudek said the pair removed the assisted backflip from their short program to ‘take out any unnecessary risk.’Fabrizio Troccoli/The Globe and Mail
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