Madeline Schizas on humour, hard work, Olivia Rodrigo and collaborating with Scott Moir: 'It's really cool'
The 20-year-old Canadian has a sarcastic side that she says helps keep things light in a sport that is plenty serious. She spoke to Olympics.com exclusively about the next phase of her young career.
Figure Skating
Canadian figure skater Madeline Schizas says that while she knows it’s unrealistic to want to win at every competition she enters, there’s one title she’s quite proud of this season: Funniest member of team Canada, as voted on by her peers.
“I think I have a different personality than people expect from me,” Schizas tells Olympics.com with a coy smile. “My sarcasm comes from my dad.”
Her father has a favourite mantra she employs to her training, too: “Adding humour to hard work makes it better for everybody.”
While the 20-year-old is always game for some laughs, she’s also serious about said hard work in her burgeoning career in the sport, having made her Olympic debut at 18 in her first senior season.
The two-time and reigning Canadian national champion goes for a third consecutive title this weekend in Calgary, where she is the outright favourite.
She – with the help of two-time Olympic ice dance champion Scott Moir among others – has entered a new phase of skating.
“I've tried to unlock a little bit maturity this year in my performances,” she says. “[The choreographers] have helped me a lot to learn how I want to portray characters and how I want to skate more so than just how I want to perform my tech elements. I've really enjoyed that.”
Madeline Schizas on working with Scott Moir and co.
It’s not lost on Schizas, however: She knows how awesome it is to be working so closely with one of the great modern minds of the sport in Moir.
“Working with Scott is really cool,” she admits, that coy smile returning before she turns reflective again. “One thing that Scott always says is, ‘The goal for me and Tessa [Virtue] was for us to make people feel something.’ I’ve been trying to tap into that, [but] it’s not something that I think I’m great at at this point in my career, the emotion, the performance side.”
Which is part of the reason why Schizas chose to work with Moir and his team in London, Ontario, including Olympic bronze medallist Madison Hubbell and Spanish ice dancer Adrian Diaz.
That trio helped Schizas develop her Farrucas short program, the same music that Virtue/Moir skated to at Vancouver 2010 for their original dance.
For her free skate, she tapped more ice dance minds: Coaches Carol Lane and Juris Razgulajevs.
“They have all really given me the space to figure out what I want to portray on the ice,” she says. “I think I'm still learning. I'm trying to figure out who I want to be as a skater. I think this year, especially, I have figured that out a little bit more.”
The benefit of her five-wide choreo team is as much for the future of Schizas’s skating as it is the present: “Those guys have been really helping me come up with a story and emotion to put behind my skating,” she says. “I think that it’s paid off; it’s been a fulfilling experience for me.”
Long drives, Olivia Rodrigo and... news podcasts
It’s also been a lot of driving. Schizas is based in Milton, Ontario, just outside Mississauga, but goes west to meet with Moir and co., which is about an hour’s drive. It’s 40 minutes the other way to get to Lane and Razgulajevs.
“It’s a lot of music on the way there and podcasts on the way back, normally that’s how I do it,” Schizas says of her alone time in the car.
“I listen to [The New York Times] The Daily podcast, a lot and a lot of the news ones, too; a couple in French,” she says. “I have been listening to Olivia Rodrigo’s new album; that’s been fuelling my drives.”
There’s school, too: Schizas is in her third year at university, though she hasn’t decided exactly what she wants to major in.
“It’s been a lot of work; third year is really hard,” she admits about her studies, then adds: “[But] I enjoy being in school. I think if I was just skating all the time I would lose my mind a little bit. I need that balance.”
Balance is something she’s trying to find within the sport, too. She’s shown flashes of brilliance but also struggled with consistency. After a disastrous short program at Skate Canada in October she was sensational in the free, going from eighth to fourth, finishing runner-up in the free.
“I was able to pull it together in the free to put up a really big score which is what I was really looking for,” Schizas said after, according to Team Canada.
This week, ahead of Calgary, Schizas told reporters she feels “the most prepared” she ever has before a national championships: “I think this is most calm” I’ve been, she added. “I’m hoping to show that to everybody.”
'I want to keep getting better'
Being thrust into the Olympic spotlight in 2022 was thrilling yet overwhelming for Schizas, but as the World Championships in Montreal this season loom and Milano Cortina 2026 grow closer, she’s feeling more settled – into herself.
“I think I'm at an interesting point in my career because I went to the Olympics really young,” she says, having placed 19th there. “It's not that I didn't expect to go, but I went right at the beginning of my senior career; it was my first senior season ever. So it's been an interesting couple of years. Because of [the Olympics], I think everyone expected me to be really good really quickly but I actually needed a little bit of time.
The time is there, as are the decisions: The choreography; the better sense of self; the humour... the drives.
“I want to get keep getting better,” she says, simply.
It sounds like a good Olivia Rodrigo lyric.