'It's still a crazy feeling'
Katherine Medland Spence's golden triumph in Poland was an international debut to truly celebrate. Now she's hungry to find out just how much higher she can soar.
Tucked inside her Instagram feed is a montage of memories from the dream skating weekend of her life, accompanied by the 2021 song “Where The Adventure Begins,” by former American Idol semifinalist Tim Halperin.
Katherine Medland Spence admits that piece of music wasn’t exactly her choice — it was suggested by one of the social media platform’s algorithms — but the more she listened to the tune, the more she warmed up to its words.
“It wasn’t planned or anything,” the 24-year-old from Ottawa says now. “But (that music) actually fits in quite well with the video.”
Take, for example, these words from the second verse of the song:
“Let the journey take you
Where it wants to
We’ll continue
To find our way through
Anything we face
We got what it takes.”
That does, indeed, pretty much sum up what happened a few weeks back at the Warsaw Cup, a Challenger Series event in Poland that marked Medland Spence’s first opportunity to compete overseas in front of an international panel of judges. It was supposed to be a weekend of learning for her, a chance to get her feet truly wet in international waters (the frozen kind, of course), but it turned into so much more than that. Something she’s still having a hard time believing actually happened to her.
“It was a dream. It still hasn’t really set in; it still feels kind of unreal,” she says of winning a gold medal in that international debut. “I’ve come home and had people congratulate me and things like that, but it still doesn’t feel real. I’m really proud of what I did, but it still hasn’t really set in yet.”
Even staring at the precious gold medal she won still doesn’t do it.
“I look at it every once in awhile and I think ‘did that really happen?’ It’s still a crazy feeling,” she said earlier this week.
Understand that this was no fluke win. She squeezed into the lead after the short program, then turned in a commanding performance in the free with a nearly flawless skate that featured seven triple jumps. It pushed her to a 10.81-point final margin over Poland’s Ekaterina Kurakova, who placed 11th at the World Championships in Montreal back in March. It was also the first gold medal won by a Canadian woman at an international competition in six years.
All of Medland Spence’s scores — 60.03 for the short, 121.86 for the free and 181.89 overall — were huge personal bests. The kind of numbers that suggest she has it in her to challenge for the podium when the Canadian Championships are held in mid-January in Laval, Quebec. This is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, but her overall score in Warsaw would have won nationals in Calgary earlier this year (that number would have been podium worthy at Canadians nine of the last 10 times it was held, and would have also won in 2020). Sure, the GOE component of the scoring system has changed over the years since then, and judging panels are different at various events all over the world. But it doesn’t diminish just how well that score stands up over time among Canadian women.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, at least in terms of how Medland Spence might consider all of this. Ask her about readjusting her goals in Laval in the wake of what happened in Poland, and she is steadfast in saying she will stick to the plan that has driven all of her success so far this season.
“The goal this year was never a placement or anything like that. It was to have consistent training and to be able to get that, and whatever the season brought me would be kind of a bonus on top of that,” she explains. “Particularly after last year, I wanted to have something I could really take away from the season and not have that be impacted by placements or results or anything like that.
“So I knew if I could build myself back up again and get that consistent training … if nothing else that I can take away from this season, it’s that I did that. We had a plan, we stuck to it and it worked. I stuck to this training and it became consistent. So really, that’s just the goal, and it’s continuing to push on that. It changes things maybe a little bit in terms of mentally just continuing to push myself.”
To understand the perspective she is sharing, it’s necessary to go back to Medland Spence’s previous season, which was filled with a litany of injuries. It held her back from being the best skater she can be, with her short program at nationals in Calgary perhaps symbolizing the frustration of it all.
“Ankle, hip, knee, back, and it was just a rotation of all of those things,” she says in describing everything she had to deal with. “At nationals, I face planted (in the short program), which caused everything to flare back up immediately after that. Just a rotating circle of multiple things at a time.”
Her results in Calgary — 13th overall with a 135.74 total score — were her lowest by far as a senior at the Canadian Championships. Understandably, all of this wore on her confidence level on the ice.
“For me as an athlete, I always want to push myself and I want to give my all for each day. To not be able to do that is so frustrating,” she says in looking back. “And just to be restricted as far as what you can do in terms of decreasing the load so I can sustain myself through a week or something like that. It’s very mentally taxing to be constantly monitoring myself but it’s also really frustrating because my body is not necessarily responding the way I’m used to it responding.
“Lesson learned from last year is to just listen to my body and make sure I’m taking care of myself. Letting (injuries) get worse does not actually help.”
From those depths, though, has come a renaissance season of sorts. And Medland Spence knows exactly who to credit for rebuilding her mindset and performance level on the ice. That would be Ken and Danielle Rose (who she connected with through Skate Ontario) along with Robert O’Toole, her new coaching team at the Richmond Training Centre in Richmond Hill, Ontario, just north of Toronto. Whether she’s on the ice at RTC or takes direction by them via Zoom back home at the Nepean Skating Club, Medland Spence can feel their positive vibe oozing from every word.
“Ken and Danielle and Robert are just so supportive, in person or even through Zoom. I kind of owe this year to them because they helped build me up from the end of last year and then we kind of continued to build that through this year,” she says. “Just having that support, knowing that I have people there to rely on … when I’m having a bad day, I can go to them and I know I have support there all the time. And if it’s really good, then I have people there to celebrate with me.
“The environment at RTC is wonderful and I love coming down here to train. All the coaches there are really great. They’ve given me support but also a space that I can work on things. Even if things aren’t going great, they’re still very, very supportive and help me work through the hardships, but are also really great at helping me acknowledge and accept the good things that come along with this, and the successes, and just learn to appreciate that.”
Medland Spence figures she has been to RTC about 10 times for training since September (she’s normally there about every three weeks). The rest of the time, it’s Zoom lessons at the Nepean Sportplex. She remains at home in Ottawa because she’s a part-time student at Carleton University, where she is closing in on earning a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry (she is about six credits away from her education there being complete, and is hopeful she will graduate in about another year and a half).
On the ice, whether she’s talking about an Octoberfest competition in Barrie, or Ontario Sectionals in November, all the way to the breakthrough in Poland, you’ll hear the same thing from Medland Spence about why it all keeps going well — she now has a foundation of consistent training that she can rely on. It is every skater’s biggest and best security blanket.
“Consistent training is basically what it is. Last year, being injured, I just couldn’t have consistent training and so by the time I got to competition, I didn’t have anything to rely on,” she says in explaining the not-so-secrets behind the success she is enjoying in her best season to date. “And just mentally and emotionally, making sure I’m good and solid, Last year, I was extremely burnt out. Partly from dealing with the injuries, but just other stuff in general. This year, it’s been a big priority of taking care of myself physically and mentally and emotionally, and making sure I’m good to go because that allows me to go out and have good training every day. And then that allows me, in competition, to have the training to rely on.”
All of this goodness came together to produce the unexpected opportunity in Poland. Even though Medland Spence had hit Skate Canada’s benchmark overall score of 160 to be considered for international assignments, “I didn’t ever think it would happen that quickly or even at all.”
“It’s a benchmark to hit and it opens the door to possibilities, but you’re not guaranteed anything. So it was just like shock that it was happening and so quickly, and then excitement.”
It all became more real a few days before the event, when a package arrived at her Ottawa home that contained the cherished Canada jacket that she would get to wear for the first time. “I opened (the package) and I just sat there staring at it for a bit. I think cool is the best way to describe it.”
As we mentioned earlier, this was meant to be a trip of opportunity for her, a chance to “really trust my training and take away as much as I could from the experience. I had no expectation of medals. I knew I was competing against some pretty big names. The medal wasn’t the goal, it was to go out there and get the experience and trust my training, as I have been doing all year, in a new environment with a little more pressure. Just gain as much as I could from international experience.”
Then came the short program which, for the second straight year, Medland Spence skates to an orchestral version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” the iconic 1970s hit by John Denver that is still sung with great vigour at West Virginia Mountaineer college football games (“my sister found that piece of music and showed it to me and I was like, I have to skate to this because I’m a big fan of country music,” she said. The program opens with “No Time For Emotion,” from the Kingsman: The Golden Circle movie soundtrack).
She skated it so well that Medland Spence found herself on top of the field of 23 after the short program. Much as the person closest to her tried to suggest a medal was possible, Medland Spence wouldn’t let it sway her from staying on course with her planned approach to the long program, which is skated to music from Cody Fry’s “Claire de Lune” and “Photograph.”
“I planned to have the same attack in the long program, whether I was first after the short or whether I was last after the short. That’s kind of been my mentality all season, to not have the short program impact the way I attacked the long program,” she said. “However the short program went and however the results went, I didn’t want that to impact my mentality going in and change my process or anything.
“My mom did talk to me before the long program, I think it was after the practice, and she did kind of say something about (winning a medal). And I was like, ‘Mom, no. I’m going to drop and that’s fine.’ For me, the goal was the long program was … I wanted to finish that program and be happy with what I did, and be happy and satisfied and not have the points that came up or the placement that came up impact that. I did figure that I was going to drop, but I wanted to be satisfied before the marks came up. When I finished that long program, I was so happy and satisfied with what I did. Everything else was just a bonus on top of that.”
Her first-place finish in the short meant that Medland Spence would skate last in the free. And even when a ‘1’ went up on the scoreboard behind her final overall score, it didn’t register immediately exactly what she had done.
“I think there were just question marks in my brain. I turned to Danielle and I was like ‘is that first?’ I saw the ‘1’ but I couldn’t understand it, the fact that I was first,” she said. “It was like ‘no, this can’t be what I’m seeing.’ It was no thoughts other than ‘oh, my God.’ I think I said ‘oh, my God’ about five times as I sat there in a span of about 30 seconds. I was just in shock.”
Her efforts caught the eye of Skate Canada’s high performance director.
“It’s great for her to go out and skate to the level she had shown us earlier in the season, and then to do that internationally. All those international events are different. You can go to a Challenger and you can have scores in the 200s, you can have scores in the 190s, or you can have scores down to the 160s,” said Mike Slipchuk. “So you never know what you’re faced with, but if you continue (doing) what your plan is, it shows that you can put yourself in the game at any time. Given the field that was there, she definitely performed to a level that deserved that gold medal, for sure.”
As she learned a bit later, there was another nice bonus that went along with that. In just one weekend, Medland Spence achieved the minimum technical score for the 2025 World Championships in Boston. And she didn’t just squeeze past the required 90 combined score for best short and long programs — her 97.15 total ranks second only to Schizas’ 107.11 among the five Canadian women who have achieved that standard.
All of this has made Medland Spence hungrier for even more. And the young woman who thirsts for ways to keep improving her skating knows she has even more in the tank than what she showed in Warsaw.
“Poland wasn’t perfect, which I think is a great thing. Yes, technically it was a clean program, I stayed on my feet the whole time, personal best … yes. But it wasn’t perfect and there’s still things to improve, so I think that’s what I’m focusing on leading up to nationals,” she explains. “Just working on those little bits that need improvement, and then continuing to work on everything in my skating and progress in all the aspects.”
After such a lost season due to injuries, it is indeed a wonderful feeling for Medland Spence, knowing her career is back on an upward trajectory. That it is happening at 24 years old, about two decades after she first put on a pair of figure skates and became enamoured with the idea of whipping around the ice as fast as possible … well, it’s hard not to resist temptation to apply the tag “late bloomer.” Even if Medland Spence isn’t quite sure it truly fits.
“It’s hard to quantify that. When are we supposed to bloom? That’s my question. Yeah, I’m old, that’s the joke. I’m old, I’m the grandma. But does our age really matter if we’re all at the same level? What does age play into that?” she says. “For me, it’s mentally a different game. I am older, my brain is more developed, I can make, hopefully, better decisions. It’s just having a little bit more of that life knowledge that is helpful just in terms of learning from things. Learning from mistakes, learning from success … it’s a little bit easier to take away from things.
“Someone asked me before, do you feel like you’ve finally reached your potential? No … I think my potential has always been there. I never really thought about success or placements or anything like that in skating. I always just skated because I loved it and I love to improve. Because I love skating, I’m happy to go to the rink every day and put the work in. The progress and the results that come out of that is great. So for me, I never really think about my potential coming out or anything like that. I’m just here to skate and continue to improve and progress.”
And if you do all of that well enough … sometimes you get rewarded with a special kind of adventure to savour along the way.
Here we go
With the sunlight on our skin
It's a brand new day, it’s ours to take and we will let it in
This is where the adventure begins
Canada Day … in December
It’s been an obstacle that has caused them great angst over the last several months, but now that it has finally been cleared. And it’s full steam ahead for Milan and the 2026 Winter Olympics for World pairs champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada.
Stellato-Dudek’s long wait for Canadian citizenship ended on Wednesday morning at in Montreal, where the duo lives and trains. While she and Deschamps had no issues with competing at the World championship level, it’s the Canadian passport that the Chicago-born Stellato-Dudek needed in hand to be eligible to represent this country in Milan.
“So much stress lifted, so much hard work rewarded,” Stellato-Dudek told reporters after she took the oath of citizenship in both of Canada’s official languages at the office of her Montreal-based lawyer, Patrice Brunet. “Now I feel like Max and I, we're free to realize our Olympic dream.”
It’s that dream that brought Stellato-Dudek back into the sport, 15 years after she had retired from figure skating because of recurring hip injuries. She and Deschamps joined forces in 2019, prompting her move to Canada. It’s a country she has come to see as home over the past five years.
“I really feel like a Canadian,” she said. “With my efforts to try to learn French and to really be a Quebecer, too. I feel like it does mean more than just for skating. I’ve felt Canadian for a while, now this just solidifies it.”
At 41 years old, Stellato-Dudek has been authoring one of the more remarkable stories in figure skating. She and Deschamps arrived in Montreal in March as the favourites to win the World title, and delivered in emphatic fashion to become the first Canadians to earn that distinction on home soil since Jamie Sale and David Pelletier in 2001 in Vancouver. The last Canadians to win the global crown before them were Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who did it back to back in 2015 and 2016.
Brunet told The Canadian Press that he believed that World title went a long way toward Stellato-Dudek being granted her Canadian citizenship. The duo will most likely be Canada’s biggest medal hopefuls in Milan, with their performance at Montreal Worlds showing that Olympic gold is definitely within their reach.
“If they had performed just average, it would have been challenging for her to get citizenship,” said Brunet. "She had to continuously perform and increase her chances. We always had to show that she could be a podium potential for 2026.”
Stellato-Dudek’s bid for citizenship also drew the attention of fans that started a petition on change.org that drew 10,000 signatures. In her mind, every little bit of that support helped her cause.
Now that she is officially Canadian, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps can turn their full attention to the road to Milan. His illness forced them to withdraw from last weekend’s Grand Prix Final in France, but there is another Canadian title to win in January right near home in Laval. And a second world championship to chase two months later in Boston.
“It's a big relief,” Deschamps said of his partner gaining Canadian citizenship. “It was a big hurdle on our way to the Olympics, and now that's just out of the way. We can really concentrate only on training, skating and competing.”
Katherine really did have an amazing skate in Warsaw. Can’t wait to see her at Nationals.