A (backward) leap into history
Their ages alone will allow Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps to make history at the Milan Olympics. But the Canadian duo won't be settling for just that
Talk about finding a way to create some early season buzz.
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps will tell you they’re not exactly creatures of social media. But the move they performed during their short program at the John Nicks Pairs Challenge International in New York — it’s being referred to as an “assisted backflip” — got those online forums humming earlier this week.
Mind you, that may not have exactly been their intent. But lots of folks in figure skating land are indeed talking about the 2024 World champions, who will tell you this is all about something completely different. Rather, it’s about them striving to be different in another way.
Simply put, the move involves Stellato-Dudek placing her skate boot in his hands, and then Deschamps launches her upward and backward.
“Maxime and I have the opportunity to make a lot of history this year because of my age, because of his age, our combined age. And you know, the next youngest girl to me is 18 years younger. That was the next oldest girl compared to me in pairs,” explained the 42-year-old (!) Stellato-Dudek. “So I thought, how much more history can we make this year? They changed the rules of figure skating last year, (and) we’ve only ever seen this type of element being performed by men.
“It has never been done by a pair team, and it’s never been done by a dance team. So we’ll make history at the Olympics, doing it for the first time. And so we’re playing a game to see how much history we can make this year.”
(here’s a screen grab of the move from a video shared by Skate Canada, via the @IcePerspectives account on Instagram).
Not that the 33-year-old Deschamps was on board right away with what he originally thought of as a “crazy idea.” Like, this crazy.
“At first she was having this crazy idea, which was like stepping from my shoulder — literally from my shoulder — and jumping. It was like … no way,” he said. “So then we thought, maybe (doing it) by the foot.”
Said Stellato-Dudek: “Maxime was actually quite against it originally, because it’s Olympic year, and he didn’t want me to hurt myself … but I was like, you just have to trust me. And he kept on kind of saying no to me and pushing it off.”
The turning point came when Stellato-Dudek convinced her partner to try it in their shoes at a gymnasium in Longueuil, on Montreal’s south shore (they train on the ice in nearly Sainte-Julie), with the help of 2016 Canadian Olympic gymnast Rose-Kaying Woo.
“We were able to do it on the first day. And I said, told ya,” said Stellato-Dudek, and it wasn’t long after that they were performing the move successfully on the ice in practice. “And now it is no longer the scariest thing I do all day.”
She and Deschamps know full well the risky move will only help their score in the Grade of Execution area (it’s a non-scoring element, but backflips no longer carry a two-point deduction). “It’s (for us) to different and to be new. Almost every year, we’ve done something that nobody else does. Sometimes it gets copied, sometimes it doesn’t.
“But I don’t think this is going to be copied anytime soon.”
There is actually a whole lot of new in the coming season for these two, starting with their decision to enlist renowned Canadian choreographer Lori Nichol — whose client list is filled with a who’s who of skating stars from around the world — to craft their new programs for the Olympic season.
Nichol is someone that Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps have both dreamed of working with for many years.
“I was supposed to work with her when I was a singles singer, because my coach actually taught her. Cindy Watson Caprel was actually a coach of Lori’s, and so we were supposed to work with her in my 1.0 career, and it never ended up coming to fruition, for whatever reason,” said Stellato-Dudek. “I told that to Maxime at our tryout (in 2019), and Maxime goes, ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted to work with her, too.’
“So we made the determination, if we ever have the opportunity, that we would love to work with her, and this year was the perfect year to do it.”
While Stellato-Dudek often knows exactly what she wants herself and Deschamps to skate to, the collaboration with Nichol offered an opportunity to share different ideas. It’s something Deschamps admitted “definitely was different, and a great experience.”
Added Stellato-Dudek: “(Nichol) came in with her own ideas, which was actually very different, but also refreshing. And I think you have to trust somebody like her, who’s had so many world medallists, so many Olympic medallists, so many Olympic champions. And so it was a really nice collaborative effort.”
And they love what Nichol created for them — Stellato-Dudek uses the words “magical masterpieces” to describe the programs. They got an early season test drive earlier this week in New York, when the Canadian duo earned the gold medal (199.43), finishing just under six points in front of American champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov.
Here’s how she describes the short program, skated to two pieces of music (“In trutina” and “O Fortuna”) from “Carmina Burana,” a 1930s cantata composed by German Carl Orff.
“Maxime is the god of fate, and he’s awakening me, and I’m the goddess of fortune, and we live life’s experiences intensely together. But Carmina Burana has many different layers of stories behind it, and so I’m sure the story will evolve as we continue to skate it this season.”
Nichol’s choice for their long program is “the magical Spanish music of Vicente Amigo,” a Spanish flamenco composer and guitarist (the specific piece they are using is entitled “Amor Dulce Muerte”).
“We are lovers skating to his music. And his music is based on a Spanish poet, Rafael Alberti. It is based in love, because we are lovers going through the program,” said Stellato-Dudek. “There’s a lot of power and passion in the program, but the constant is love, and love is guiding each step of the program.
“We’re really excited about these two programs … Everything kind of magically blends together. I always want to do stuff like dancers. Really good dancers, you blink and their program’s over and it’s been four minutes and 10 seconds, and I’ve always wanted programs in that way for pairs as well. I have to say (Nichol) made two magical masterpieces, and that’s why we’ve been working so hard, to make sure that we can show them the way that they’re meant to be seen.”
They’ll be seen twice on the Grand Prix circuit, both times in October: the series opener at Grand Prix de France, from Oct. 17-19 in Angers, followed two weeks later by their home Grand Prix, Skate Canada International in Saskatoon, Sask.
It didn’t take long for the duo to shifts their thoughts toward this season after their fifth-place finish at the 2025 World Championships in Boston — not exactly the result they were envisioning after winning the global title a year earlier in Montreal. But Stellato-Dudek, as is her way, took a deep dive into what went wrong and how to fix it or just generally improve on their performances at TD Garden.
“You know, these world championships were really disappointing for us. So the second I got home, I made a spreadsheet of what we placed in each element in each program. And it’s very obvious where we needed to improve,” she said. “We were actually first or second in six elements out of 11. Then it was like, okay, how can we maintain that lead (in those elements) and/or make it larger?
“And on our pair spin, for instance, we were in a four way tie for third. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not really a four way tie for third kind of gal. I was like, how can we change that and make that better? And it’s been full focus, pedal to the metal, full speed ahead, ever since the second we got home, because we were not happy.”
Both skaters pointed toward their side-by-side jumps as a particular area that was in need of much more consistency.
“The obvious ones were the jumps. Like I said, we were first or second in six elements, third in one, fourth in one, and then the jumps were really low,” she said. “So it was super clear that that’s what we needed to work on. And we also needed to include the triple-double-double that we had not included yet. So we’ve been working on that since the second we got back. And we are doing that this year.”
Dancing toward Milan
When you’re travelling around in the kind of loftier circles that Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha now occupy, there isn’t much time or value in dwelling on the past. You just move on toward the next step in your evolution as ice dancers.
So it is that the 26-year-old Lagha had this to say (with a bit of a grin on his face, we might add) when we asked how he and his partner felt about the way their 2024-25 season ended, with a seventh-place finish at 2025 Worlds in Boston (a drop of two spots from a year earlier in Montreal).
“Whatever, man. We live in the present and it ended the way it ended, and so whatever, bro. We focus on now and that’s it. Even if we podiumed, let’s say, (that chapter) would be closed.”
And at the end of the day, when you’re a still relatively young team with plenty of big ambitions still in front of you … yeah, that is the practical approach to take. Especially with an Olympic season right in front of them and serious competition just a few weeks away.
It’s also been one of those summers for the Montreal-based team and yes, we’re talking about that dreaded music rights clearance issue once again. It reared its head as Lajoie and Lagha, and their team at the powerhouse Ice Academy of Montreal contemplated the two new programs they’ll use in the coming season.
“The first (idea), we were really into it. We started to practise and then the (music) rights, they said it’s going to be so expensive, so that’s a sad part that we needed to deal with,” said Lajoie, 24.
Added Lagha: “Then there was another (piece of) music and somebody else was using it. And for some reason, we couldn’t use that music.”
But after all of that, they’re happy with what they landed on. For the rhythm dance, they’ll skate to a medley of “Get Ready,” “Thunderstruck” (the 1990s AC/DC anthem) and “Ole, Ole, Ole” (yes, that song you may have heard chanted loudly at Montreal Canadiens hockey games).
“The theme is like a sports anthem, so that is what we’re going for,” said Lagha.
For the free dance, Lagha said the duo “went back to the basics” and the classical vibes of legendary German composer Johann Sebastian Bach: “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” and “Air on the G String.”
In their minds, it’s the right combination to take all the way to the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
“There was a lot of looking around, but now we’re very happy, I think it's going to be a fun (combination) for the Olympics, especially,” said Lajoie. “I think it’s fun to show that skating can be also … it’s a sport, not just art. So it’s nice not to just wear a pretty dress. That’s a bit the point of this (rhythm dance). It’s more showing the sporty part of this sport … I think it’s interesting to show this part, too.”
They will debut the new programs at Nepela Memorial, a Challenger Series event that runs Sept. 25-27 in Bratislava, Slovakia (UPDATE: Lajoie and Lagha have withdrawn from this event). Then early in October, it’s off to Budapest Trophy, designated as a Senior B event this season. All of that is a lead-up to Skate Canada International, from Oct. 31-Nov. 2 in Saskatoon. Later in November, it’s a relatively short drive from Montreal down to Lake Placid, N.Y., for Skate America.
“Then, hopefully the (Grand Prix) Final,” Lagha said of the series ending competition to be held in Dec. 4-7 in Nagoya, Japan (they have placed sixth and fourth at that event the previous two seasons).
The Winter Olympics, of course, are the big target for every elite skater this season. And it’s no different for Lajoie and Lagha, whose Olympic debut came in 2022 at the COVID-shrouded Games in Beijing. They are enthused about the prospect of having family and friends in the stands in Milan to watch them dance across the five rings.
“I think because we did the first one, we already have the experience of this big stage. So I think that’s a good thing,” said Lajoie. “We don’t want to think too much about it (yet) because it’s a big competition and if we’re just focused about Olympics, then the whole season is long.
“We have other competitions. So we want to approach it focusing on every competition, step by step, nothing too much about (Olympics). It’s there, we know it’s there, it’s in the back of our mind. But we’ll approach it like every other season, try to get better, and that’s it.”
Any conversation with these two, at some point, has to make its way around to their health. That part of things reared its head just before Skate Canada International last season, when Lajoie was diagnosed with another concussion (you’ll recall she had a serious one that wiped out a big chunk of their 2023-24 season).
But she was happy to report during high performance camp in Mississauga, Ont., that all is well at the moment (for both of them, as a matter of fact).
“I’m very careful, and I do pilates two times a week. I try to do stretching almost every day. I have my massage every Friday, so we try to keep a little schedule, to stay healthy, but staying healthy means just staying away from injuries,” she said. “It’s the big goal, because if we don’t get injured and we can train. then that’s good. Now it’s going well, so I think we manage well.”
Showdown in Osaka
There’s a Skate Canada International berth on the line for a trio of Canadian ice dance teams at Kinoshita Group Cup this weekend, and Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac most definitely have a virtual lock on it after the rhythm dance Saturday in Osaka, Japan.
While a lot of the chatter has surrounded the TBD in the women’s even in Saskatoon, the same vacancy exists in ice dance for a Canadian entry. A trio of couples arrived at this Challenger Series event knowing full well the the top finisher would get that cherished spot.
Round 1 went convincingly to Lauriault and Le Gac, the veterans who last represented the home country at Skate Canada International all the way back in 2022 in Mississauga, Ont. The Montreal-based duo holds nearly a 10-point lead after scoring 76.40 for their rhythm dance to move into first place overall.
Back in fifth are Alicia Fabbri and Paul Ayer (66.69), who finished ahead of Lauriault and Le Gac back in January to claim an ice dance berth at 2025 Words in Boston. Sitting in seventh place are Lily Hensen and Nathan Lickers (60.29), the third Canadian duo at Kinoshita.
Meanwhile, in the women’s competition, Canada’s Maddie Schizas was in position to challenge for a medal after the short program, sitting in third place, but faltered badly in the free skate and tumbled to 10th overall. Canada’s Aleksa Rakic stands 10th heading into Sunday’s free program in the men’s event.
Around the boards
The medal run continued this week for Canadian skaters on the Junior Grand Prix series. This time, it was ice dancers Summer Homick and Nicholas Buelow displaying bronze medals in front of the Canadian flag after finishing third in Varese, Italy, in their first international event of the season. Homick and Buelow, who train under the direction of former Canadian Olympian Mitchell Islam in Barrie, Ont., were fourth after the rhythm dance but moved up one spot after the free dance to squeeze onto the podium by a scant 0.67 points. They’ll compete for a second time in the Series in three weeks in Azerbaijan … In the men’s event, Canadian junior champion David Bondar placed 10th after sitting in fifth spot after the short program … The JGP moves on to Thailand next weekend, with the following Canadian skaters in the field: Anthony Paradis (men), Victoria Barakhtina (women), Jazmine Desrochers/Kieran Thrasher (pairs), and Charlie Anderson/Cayden Dawson, and Victoria Carandiuc/Andrei Carandiuc (ice dance).
The biggest problem with the assisted backflip is that it is ugly - her position in the air, the landing. The whole looks like a gimmick rather than an elegant skill. They are a great pair with amazing skills and beautiful lines. Why are they going for gimmicks?
It was so incredibly cool to see this move in person, and this interview is great!