Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps on age, illness, ADHD - and a home Worlds in Montreal
The veteran Canadian pairs team say the World Championships in Deschamps’ hometown is like “a dream come true” for them after working through her illness and his ADHD.
Figure Skating
“We have built a lot of together... and [developed] the tools to get through many things,” says Maxime Deschamps of his unique partnership with Deanna Stellato-Dudek.
“It’s a good evolution with each other,” he adds, openly discussing the ADHD he faces. “Throughout the years we have gotten to know each other better and have gotten better through [it].”
The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is just one of many challenges that this duo, only having teamed up since 2019, has faced. At 40 (Stellato-Dudek) and 31 (Deschamps), they are far and away the most senior team in pairs figure skating – and the sport as a whole – and fought through a months-long illness for Deanna last season to finish fourth at the World Championships.
But with this season culminating at Worlds in Montreal, where Deschamps was born and grew up and where the team is based, there is a pointed desire to land on the podium in front of a home Canadian crowd.
“This is like the dream we’ve been waiting for,” Stellato-Dudek told reporters, noting that the team wouldn’t have been able to compete at Worlds in 2020 as she was not yet eligible for Canada internationally. That year, the World Champs were cancelled in Montreal due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Hopefully it’s going to be a dream that comes true,” she added, that dream being a podium finish.
Stellato-Dudek: ‘I’m a contender no matter what my age is’
After being challenged by pandemic restrictions at home in Quebec and internationally early in their partnership, Stellato-Dudek/Deschamps had a breakout season a year ago, landing on the podium at two Grand Prix stops, winning a national title and taking that aforementioned fourth at Worlds to finish the season.
Stellato-Dudek made international headlines as their success grew: Now 40, the former American singles skater stepped away from the sport in the early 2000s when injuries sidelined her. She returned in 2016 after a work retreat realisation (she had been working as an aesthetician) that she still had the desire to compete.
“I'm the only 40-year-old, but the next oldest person is like 24, I mean, not even close to my age,” Stellato-Dudek laughed. “I don't mind my age being a focal point because it is unique and I do want it to be spoken about... but I've said before, the pendulum for me as the odd woman out, [it] swings both ways: I am celebrated more when I do well, and I am criticised harsher when I don't. So the standard for me is higher because of my age.”
Stellato-Dudek is nearly right: Save for 2023 world silver medallist Alexa Knierim at 32 (who isn’t competing this season), the next oldest female pair skater is American Emily Chan, who is 26.
Fourteen years Deanna’s junior.
“I still want to go out there and do a good job and show that I'm a contender no matter what my age is against my competitors,” she said. “And that I deserve the respect because I'm just as competitive as they are.”
ADHD, illness and a home Worlds
For the first time, Deschamps has been open about his ADHD, which he said has created a “roller coaster” relationship for her and Stellato, but also helped the team improve faster “because we know each other better... it has created more challenges for us to overcome.”
While their results on paper from last year look sparkling, they didn’t come without challenges, too: Stellato-Dudek battled a viral infection in the middle of the season that no only impacted her physically but also the team’s ability to train.
“It was a long three-month battle,” Deanna said, having to be careful with the treatments she chose due to drug regulations in elate sport. “[I felt] like I was treading water.”
Stellato-Dudek says she was healthy by Worlds in March, and had the “whole summer to reset and get back into it.”
The team opened the season with a win at Autumn Classic outside of Montreal in September, debuting their “Oxygène” short program (an ode to Montreal) and Interview with the Vampire free skate, both choreographed by Julie Marcotte.
It was there that they topped reigning world champions Miura Riku and Kihara Ryuichi, though the Japanese duo later revealed it had limited training due to a back injury for Kihara. They would pull out of Skate America prior to the Grand Prix, highlighting the severity of the injury.
Of their improvements, Stellato-Dudek said: “I think that this year it's the speed and power that we've added, as well as the artistic mark in both programs.”
'I feel like I'm in my prime'
This weekend they enter the Grand Prix field at Skate Canada International in Vancouver as the favourites, though the field will offer plenty of challenges, including from Maria Pavlova and Alexei Sviatchenko of Hungary, who were seventh at Worlds as well as Australians Anastasia Golubeva and Hektor Giotopoulous Moore, who were eighth.
It’s their debut as a team at Skate Canada, and also a point of inflection for the Canadian pairs system, which has been steeped in success in the history of this sport.
For a brief moment last season, it appeared that Max and Deanna would be runaway favourites in the national scene, but Lia Pereira and Trennt Michaud have since teamed up, the duo improving by leaps and bounds in just a year.
The young teams of Brooke McIntosh (sister of Olympic gold medal swimmer Summer McIntosh) and Benjamin Mimar and Kelly Ann Laurin and Loucas Etheir both have shown strong results, too.
With Pereira, McIntosh and Laurin all still teenagers, however, it’s hard not to marvel at Stellato-Dudek’s age, even if – indeed – it is “just a number.”
“I would say [we’re the] same as any other contender for the podium at Worlds,” Stellato-Dudek said plainly. “I don't think that we're any different from anybody else. With the exception of the age, which I understand, you know, people focus on.”
“I feel like I'm in my prime and skating the best I've ever skated,” she said. “And I just hope that we can show that [this season].”