'I feel like everything is possible now'
After a pair of rather significant podium breakthroughs this season, Canadian skater Sara-Maude Dupuis believes it's time to turn her biggest dreams into reality.
You may recall that a few weeks back, we talked in this space about how the Four Continents Championships would be seen as a Worlds warmup for the majority of the Canadian team in South Korea.
There are bigger things ahead for them in Boston. Much bigger things.
But what about the handful of skaters sporting the red maple for whom that particular event marked the end of line for their seasons? Surely, this was more than just another chance to skate their programs one last time.
For the likes of Katherine Medland Spence and Matthew Newnham, it was an opportunity to compete at an International Skating Union championships event for the first time in their careers. That’s pretty exciting stuff.
Then there’s Sara-Maude Dupuis, who started out her season targeting Four Continents as a major goal. And for the third straight year, the 19-year-old from Montreal ended her season on that major stage. It’s a competition that continues to yield personal best scores for Dupuis, allowing her to head into the off-season on a high note. It’s a habit she’s happy to keep experiencing.
“I’m a skater that, in general, is better at peaking later in the year. That’s actually something on working on for next season, trying to be better earlier in the season. But naturally, I’m strongest and readiest in the second half of the season,” she explained. “It’s funny sometimes. People say ‘you always seem to do well at Four Continents. Aren’t you super stressed? It’s the biggest competition of (your) season.’ And I’m like ‘no, my goal the whole season was to get there.’
“After nationals, I really skate free because my goal is already achieved and I try to enjoy it more. I think that’s one of the reasons (for that peak). By the time Four Continents rolls around, there’s no qualifying goals and I skate more free. I already got where I was going, so I can just enjoy the competition. It’s a combination of being super ready and skating free, with no pressure.”
For Dupuis, her overall total (178.36) was a personal best, about a six-point gain over her previous high (set last year at Four Continents, naturally). That number was also a season’s best internationally by 12.05 points, surpassing her total from Nebelhorn Trophy back in September. She also turned in a new personal best score for the short program (62.35), skated to “Never Go Back” by Evanescence (kinda appropriate, don’t you think?), topping her previous high from Nebelhorn.
While she dropped a spot in the final standings over her previous trips to Four Continents — she was 10th in Seoul, following two straight ninth-place finishes — Dupuis agreed the quality of her skating was on a higher plane this time. It says something that, even with two falls in the free skate, she still was able to turn in a 116.01 score that was only about three points shy of her personal best (want to take a guess at which event that happened?).
“I’ve improved every year that I went (to Four Continents) and this was the best year. The competition was stiff and I knew it would be stiff going in. So I’m still pretty proud of how I fared with my ranking, even though it’s one place lower than the last two years,” she said. “I look at my score, which was my personal best on the international stage, and only four points lower than nationals. So yeah, I’m pretty happy with it and I think it was my best showing at Four Continents, definitely.”
It’s also a testament to the extra work that’s being done on the program components side of her skating with coach Stephane Yvars and choreographer David Wilson. She recorded PCS personal bests in both programs in Seoul, and that’s something she knows has to keep growing.
“This is something that we’ve really been working on at home, really trying to perfect the programs and get them as refined as possible. And really push them to maximum we can get with points,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to do, that’s for sure. For next year, I really want to work on my speed across the ice. I’ve done a lot of work on my glide and I think that’s better. But there’s still a lot of work to do with speed across the ice. And when I watch other skaters ahead of me in competition, I’m like ‘okay, I think I’m getting closer. That’s what they do that I’m missing.’
“It’s a huge focus in training because even if you skate clean, if the components aren’t there … they’re still half your score. We have to put at least half of the effort into that.”
If you’re asking Dupuis about a season highlight (and yes, we did), there is no doubt she will quickly point to the 2025 Canadian Championships, which were held close to home in Laval, Quebec. That fact alone would have made it a memorable event. But the fact she broke through for her first ever medal at nationals (silver) … let’s just say she made herself a lifetime memory.
“Nationals has always been a really tough competition for me. As much as at Four Continents I would skate free and with no pressure, I would really feel the pressure at nationals and that kind of got to me the last few years,” said Dupuis, who seemed en route to a medal at Canadians a year ago in Calgary before stumbling in the free skate. “I always felt nationals was the cruelest competition. In novice, I won Challenge and then bombed nationals. In junior, I won Challenge and nationals were cancelled. And then in senior, I placed fourth the one year (2023) and last year, I was third after the short, then really tensed up in the free and went down to sixth.
“This year, it was finally (let’s) get it together and break the curse. In front of my family at home was just super, super special. I was super relieved and really happy. It was the one medal I’ve been chasing for so long and it was OK, finally … I’ve always been, I think, one of the best skaters in my category growing up but I could never medal at nationals. This was a confirmation of everything and it just felt so awesome.”
It also has her confidence level soaring into the summer months.
“I finally broke my biggest mental blockage at nationals and I feel like everything is possible now. I feel like I can do it again next year, maybe win next year,” she said. “Going into next season as really a top contender and be really good competition every time because I’ve established myself as a top-two skater (in Canada).”
Ask Dupuis what made the difference for her this year at nationals, and she points to a Challenger Series in Estonia in November. That’s where she earned a bronze medal, her first trip to the podium at an international event. One big breakthrough, it might be said, led to another one two months later.
“It was kind of the start of the breakthrough. I didn’t skate that great at that competition, but I got the medal and that was super encouraging,” she said. “I didn’t skate that great but I still did get good (scores) and got my first medal, so I think I’m (headed in) the right direction. And then I got to nationals and skated much better, and also got the result I’ve been wanting forever.
“I feel like Tallinn was like the setup for nationals. It was the ‘okay, I can do this’ (moment) and then at nationals I did it.”
The silver medal in Laval also made her the first alternate for Worlds in Boston, which is just a little less than three weeks away. So it is that she continues to toil away at Centre Elite Patinage Artistique in Boucherville, on Montreal’s South Shore, where she trains with Yvars.
“I just keep training literally as if I was going to compete in the week of Worlds. It can be harder to stay motivated — you’re technically not competing — but it’s still such an honour to be in that position that I want to try my best and train my best, in case something happens and I have to step in,” she said. “Obviously, that’s not what we want. We want Maddie (Schizas) to be healthy and performing at her best, but I’ve got to be ready if it happens.”
Like every senior women’s skater in this country, Dupuis will be watching intently when the 22-year-old Schizas takes to the ice at TD Garden. With a top-10 finish, the three-time national champion would earn Canada a second spot for both the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy, and the ensuing World Championships in the Czechia capital of Prague.
While we’ve opined many times in this space about the chances of Schizas making that happen, Dupuis knows her good friend faces a major challenge against the world’s best in Boston.
“That would be awesome for us, just to get the second spot. It would open up the door a bit more for the Olympics and Worlds next year. But then again, it’s going to be a really hard task and everybody knows it,” she said. “Regardless of which woman would have gone (to Boston), it would be super hard to get a top 10. I think Maddie has it in her. If it happens, it’s great, but if it doesn’t, that’s also okay. The race is going to be on for next year for the one spot.”
After everything that’s happened for her in the last four months or so, Dupuis feels she has inserted herself right in the middle of that race. It already has her fired up for the coming season, and possibilities it might contain.
“It does wonders for my motivation. I feel like everything is actually within reach now. I’ve been reflecting on this after Four Continents. As skaters, we often say ‘my dream is to go to the Olympics.’ And you say that to everybody, but it’s just a dream,” she said. “But I feel like heading into next year, that language is going to switch to ‘this is my actual goal and objective for next season,’ and it’s within reach and it’s realistic. I actually believe in it and believe in myself much more with the season I’ve had, and it’s just the start.”
All of this validates a decision Dupuis made five years ago about her career direction. She had dabbled in ice dance for four seasons, placing 10th at novice nationals in 2020 with her former partner Felix Desmarais. But it was at that point that she knew it was time to pick one discipline to focus on.
To her, that choice ended up being an obvious one.
“I had such a fun time doing ice dance. Some of my best memories are of doing ice dance with my best friend (Desmarais), who is still one of my greatest friends now. But ice dance wasn’t our priority — he was doing his gymnastics, I was doing my singles, and we would get together at night to do our ice dancing,” she explained. “And it got to the point where he retired from gymnastics and wanted to focus on ice dance. And at the same time, my singles career was going really well. I was winning Challenge in novice and stuff. So we kind of decided to go our separate ways.
“But I’m really grateful for that time. It came to the end as it should have. The competitions were crazy at the end (with having to handle practices and warmups for both events) and it was affecting my performances a bit. But it became quite clear I had to choose, and I think I made the right choice.”
Dupuis balances all of this with continuing her studies in the classroom. She is currently in CEGEP in health sciences (a preparatory level for university in Quebec), and will finish up at College de Maisonneuve in the spring. She has applied to enter the pharmacy or biopharmaceutics program at the University of Montreal (“I’m just waiting for an answer on that”).
“One of my big dreams off the ice, one of my big passions is science and I want to become a pharmacist. I just don’t know how that’s going to work with figure skating. Pharmacy is a doctorate program and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it in tandem with figure skating,” she said. “But that’s my end goal, and I really appreciate being able to go to school as well as my skating. I think it keeps me balanced. It allows my to accentuate different sides of my personality, the athlete and the scientist. My goal is to get into university in the fall. I just don’t know whether it’s going to be in biopharmaceutics or pharmacy just yet.”
She admits to being inspired by fellow Montrealer Joannie Rochette, who went from the Olympic podium in 2010 in Vancouver to medical school at McGill University. She is now a doctoral resident in Montreal hospitals.
“(Rochette) is a big inspiration for me, actually. Sometimes I work with her former coach, Manon Perron, and we talked about school,” said Dupuis. “She said Joannie did it, she started med school while figure skating, so I think this is possible. There’s always a way. That was a big motivation for me to apply (to university) and I’ll see how it goes. At least I’ll give it a shot.”
But make no mistake about it. With an Olympic season on the horizon, figure skating will remain Dupuis’ priority for the next several months.
“I don’t really want to mess with skating next year too much, but I will try to take a few (university) classes,” she said.
Dupuis also hopes this season isn’t quite done yet. Worlds aside, there might be an opportunity to skate at World Team Trophy next month in Japan if Canada is one of the six qualifying countries (something that will be decided after the World Championships). Her second-place finish in Laval has Dupuis thinking she might still have some competitive skating left to do this season. And if she could do it alongside one of her best friends in the sport …
“We’ve grown really close after travelling the world together over the past 2 1/2 years. We got really close and it’s super fun to compete together and really be on the same path,” she said of her friendship with Schizas. “We had this goal at the beginning of the season of, how cool would it be if we could go together again to World Team Trophy in Japan this season? But we don’t know yet how (team) qualifications are going to go. It’s two spots. And at nationals, when we placed 1-2, it was like ‘oh, we did it.’ We’re close to this goal.”
Around the boards
Canadian skating phenom Lia Cho mined more gold this week, and this time it was of the international variety. The 12-year-old from Canada, who shone at Canadians in Laval in January by winning the junior women’s title, easily topped the field in the advanced novice women’s B category at the Maria Olszewska Memorial competition in Lodz, Poland. With a 151.81 overall total, Cho’s score was more than 22 points better than silver medallist Ksenia Krouzkevitch of Canada. In advanced novice women’s A, it was more gold for the red maple leaf, this one earned by Hannah Quinn. Among the men, Canada’s Rui Qin and Ethan Luo claimed the gold and silver medals respectively. Canadians also produced two gold medal teams in pairs: Ava Cheung and Stephen Lee (junior), and Jaslynn Wong and Nico Conforti (advanced novice). There were no Canadian entries in ice dance.