Meet the next big thing in Canadian ice dance
Soon enough, you'll get used to hearing all about Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont. But how their story started? That's quite the tale in itself
Editor’s note: The following story is based on a series of interviews done back in January. It was meant to appear in an issue of International Figure Skating Magazine several months ago, but sadly the owner and publisher of IFS passed away suddenly at the end of February and that publication is no more. I have decided to share it with readers in this space and, outside of a few minor tweaks, it is being presented in the manner in which it would have appeared in the magazine. And to the people interviewed for it … sorry this took so long!
Carol Lane needs only one word to describe the bountiful potential she sees in the team that might well be the next big thing in Canadian ice dance.
“Limitless,” the veteran coach says without hesitation when asked about the rising stars of Ice Dance Elite, the high-performance centre based at the Scarboro Figure Skating Club in Toronto’s east end. “They have the talent, and talent is the start. But they are also artists. It’s not just about the skating, it’s about the story.”
And what a story Nadiia Bashynska and Peter Beaumont authored in their sixth season together. From start to almost the finish of the 2022-23 season, it was a golden run for the duo, who collected victories at a pair of Junior Grand Prix events and the Junior Grand Prix Final in the fall, then added their first Canadian junior title in January in Oshawa, Ontario.
Their breakout season concluded with a bronze-medal finish at the World Junior Championships on home soil in Calgary. The victory there was in Bashynska and Beaumont moving up from fourth spot after the rhythm dance to a place on the podium.
“I am very happy to end up on a podium and I am very proud of ourselves and everyone else up here,” the 19-year-old Bashynska said at the post-event press conference. “It’s been a long and hard season for all of us.”
All of this success was part of an ambitious plan, they will tell you. Fresh off a bronze medal performance at last year’s World Juniors in Estonia, Beaumont and Bashynska decided to aim even higher in the just-concluded season.
“At the beginning of the season, both Nadiia and I sat at a table and discussed what our goals were for the season, and we said, ‘win everything,’” said Beaumont, 21, said after the couple had reached the top of the podium at the Canadian Championships in January. “It might have seemed far-fetched to some people, but we thought it was totally reachable and so far we have proven that.”
Lane sensed a special season was in the cards for her young team but has been around the sport long enough to know that even the best-laid plans can often go awry.
“Like Kurt Browning always says, they put the ice down slippery side up. So you never know. You have to trust your training, trust your work, but things happen, you know,” she explained. “They were very ready to take advantage of opportunities, but they also know the better it is going, the more you have to pay attention.
“But I see it with them now. I see it when they go out on the ice in practice and in training. They’ve got that look. I can’t tell you what that look is, but you know it when you see it.”
That might also describe the thought that Lane and the coaching team at IDE, her husband Jon Lane and Juris Razgulajevs, had when they first saw Bashynska and Beaumont take a spin around the ice together back in 2017.
“They skated around once together and we literally looked at each other and said, ‘that’ll work,’” she said of their initial tryout session.
Worlds apart
How it came to work … well, that is quite the story in itself. Bashynska is from Ukraine and when she was 10 years old and still living in Kyiv, she and her then-partner Andrei Kapran travelled to Germany to attend an ice dance seminar that the Lanes and Razgulajevs held in Oberstdorf.
“She had a little partner, and they were just wonderful. They were totally adorable,” said Carol Lane. “And we thought oh, they’re going to be good. And then Nadiia’s family moved to Canada. The little boy was supposed to come with them but he didn’t, in the end. So Nadiia waited for a year, just skating by herself and doing tests.”
Bashynska’s family moved to Canada in 2016. “It was my parents’ decision to give us opportunities that they thought they didn’t have in Ukraine. We obviously loved Carol, Jon and Juris and the whole club when I went to Oberstdorf.
“So my parents just wanted the best for the kids, and they moved to Canada. I have an older sister and a younger sister. They both used to figure skate, but I am the only one who stuck with it.”
However, she says now that if Beaumont had not come into her life, she would have left the sport herself. Ballet also held a special place in her heart.
“I had a scholarship and basically had a choice to go to Winnipeg to a Royal Ballet School, or to be in Toronto. It was the right choice to make,” said Bashynska, who first learned of Beaumont’s availability via the Ice Partner Search website. “Basically, Peter was a deal breaker. As soon as I tried out with Peter and those first few days of the tryout felt fantastic … it felt right, everything felt good.”
Beaumont had a big choice of his own to make. He is from Rotherham, England, and only learned of Bashysnka through a chance meeting between Jon Lane and one of his former ice dance partners, Vivienne Dean, who happened to reconnect at the British Championships in November 2016.
It was the moment life would change for two skaters from different parts of Europe. And in Canada, of all places.
“I had split up with my partner (Mia Jowitt) a couple of months prior and I was looking for a partner,” Beaumont explained. “Fortunately for me, one of my old ice dance coaches (Dean) used to skate with Jon Lane in the U.K. years ago. They basically introduced us by showing us videos of each other’s skating.
“In January of the next year, we set up a trial, I came over and we decided things were going to work in the long run.”
‘Leap of faith’
Even to this day, Carol Lane calls Beaumont’s decision “a huge leap of faith. Huge. And for all the times that it works, there are a million times that it doesn’t.”
Beaumont moved in with Bashynska’s family and those early days created a new home dynamic that was interesting, shall we say, for the family of girls who suddenly had a young lad from England in their midst.
But soon enough, Bashynska said, it became more comfortable for everyone involved.
“He had to move to my family, no parents, nothing, and at the age of 16 he started living with basically a random stranger. And we had a random stranger in our house,” she said. “While I was learning my English and my family was trying to adapt to the fact that we had a guy in the house … we grew closer, and it started working.”
In a bit of a strange twist, Beaumont still lives with Bashynska’s family (“until I get permanent residency. Then I can start working”), while Nadiia has moved into downtown Toronto, where she also works as a barista at a local coffee shop.
“I moved out recently to live on my own. It’s a great opportunity just for me,” said Bashynska, who enjoys sharing parts of her life with fans on her YouTube channel. “I love being a barista, I love making coffee. I love connecting with people.”
Obviously, it has worked rather well since those humble beginnings. The duo won the Canadian novice ice dance title in their first season together in 2017-18, but it took a while for the junior crown to finally come their way this year.
But as Beaumont put it, they knew this was something built for the long haul.
“I trust my feelings a lot and when it feels right, it is right,” Bashynska explained. “We just worked together as skaters. Our skating was very similar, I guess. Peter is very special in the performance aspect, and I had my own performance things as well.
“I have to say what makes this work now and what keeps this relationship going is our ability to communicate. It took us a really long time … we are very different, two different cultures. We came together, it took a lot of learning and lot of understanding to actually make the team work.”
Beaumont, however, says it goes beyond what they show on the ice.
“It’s not just the skating side of it. We both had the same goal in mind in the sport,” he said. “We both want to achieve the ultimate Olympic dream, World Championships, and do as much as we can in terms of the competition aspect of the sport. So that paired nicely with us matching quite well as skaters.”
At the World Junior Championships in 2022, Beaumont saw another side of his partner’s culture come to the fore. Weeks before that competition, Russia invaded Bashynska’s birth country, where she still has a number of relatives (her two uncles are serving in Ukraine’s military in defence of their homeland).
The couple had spent the entire season competing with a free dance set to Russian music. But suddenly, that became untenable to Bashynska, and the decision was made to craft a new free dance for Junior Worlds in the month before the competition.
Changing course
“I just came in (to the rink) one morning and I couldn’t listen to that music anymore. It just didn’t feel right. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just a feeling inside you,” explained Bashynska. “I wouldn’t be able to keep that program, I wouldn’t be able to do that to my family, to my roots. It’s a big betrayal.
“What Russia is doing to my country is not acceptable, so we wanted to show we are better than that. So we changed the program and again, it was more personal, and I did it with Peter’s support and the coaches’ support. It was a lot to do in the month before the competition, but we pulled through.”
Needless to say, the war in Ukraine is always front of mind for her (she started a baking business to help support the cause) and because of that, Bashynska was supportive of the International Skating Union’s decision to ban Russian skaters from global events this season.
Even so, she manages a hint of sympathy for the athletes affected by the move.
“I was giving interviews to the Russian channels and saying how I believe that Russia and Ukraine were one nation in the past. I don’t believe that anymore, just because it its cruel what Russia is doing,” she said. “I don’t have anything against Russian skaters … (the ban) is unfair to the skaters and I sympathize with them because they work hard, and they train like crazy. But they carry the Russian flag and I guess it is what it is.”
Through it all, Bashynska — who became a Canadian citizen in 2020 — has felt a supportive environment in her adopted homeland and within her training group, which includes Lane’s prize students Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier. She and Beaumont have watched their training mates grow into two-time Canadian champions, World bronze medalists and two-time Olympians. They also cherish the personal side of the relationship that has developed along the way.
“They are stars of ice dance right now, but they are also just people. They’re our friends and they are amazing human beings,” said Bashynska. “Honestly, they have always been there for me during the hard times and I have been there for them, and it’s just a very nice friendship to have.”
And Lane, for one, believes they could not have had better mentors.
What is most important, she adds, is that Bashynska and Beaumont have not only learned from them but acted upon those lessons.
“It’s been a tremendous help to them,” said Lane. “Nadiia and Peter are very smart. They see how Piper and Paul work; they see what needs to be done and they do it. They are very self-directed.
“You couldn’t have better role models than Piper and Paul. They are dedicated, sensible people. They don’t take themselves too seriously and they are outstanding workers. Nadiia and Peter have taken that on board, and they have done something with it. That’s the key.”
Gilles and Poirier travelled a long road to reach their greatest successes, and that is something Beaumont says he and his partner have taken to heart. “It’s their resilience. It took Tessa (Virtue) and Scott (Moir) retiring for people to realize their true potential. So it’s the pure resilience, and so often the approach of, to never give up and continue with the sport.”
A grand occasion
It was a special day for one and all at the Grand Prix Final in December in Turin, Italy, when first Bashynska and Beaumont, then Gilles and Poirier stood on top of the podium in their respective events. For both, it was a breakthrough gold medal at the competition.
“It was a surreal experience, really. If you were to have said to us beforehand, you both win the gold medal, you bring it home, we would have said ‘yeah, we’ll take that,’” said Beaumont. “Honestly, we were overwhelmed to have had that experience.”
Lane still smiles at any mention of that day. It is one she says she will never forget.
“It was a magical day. You might have a day like that once in your career and I certainly waited long enough for it,” she said. “I was cool on the outside but on the inside, there was a little me jumping up and down and being very happy. I am still very happy, and I will always be very happy when I think of that day. It was an amazing achievement for our skaters, for our school. We were just delighted.”
It was a similar feeling a month later in Oshawa when, after silver-medal finishes in their two previous tries, Bashynska and Beaumont finally ascended to the top of the junior ice dance podium at Canadians.
The celebration was made even sweeter when they learned the overall total score they posted (183.97) erased the previous Canadian junior record held by Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha, who were the senior silver medalists at nationals. The joy in the kiss and cry was beyond obvious when the skaters saw that score.
“It’s very exciting to take (the record) after Marjorie and Zach,” said Bashynska. “We are definitely excited to maybe hold it for some time. We’ll see how long we go with it being our record.”
All of this has the duo enthused and eager about the prospect of moving up to the senior ranks next season (they recently released a clip of their new rhythm dance for 2023-24, which will be skated to “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS and Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys”). They are very aware of the decorated history of ice dance in Canada and cannot wait to blaze their own trail of success at the senior level.
“Competing in the big leagues means competing against people we’ve been admiring our whole lives. Honestly, right now saying feels kind of surreal,” said Bashynska. “It doesn’t feel like it’s actually going to happen.”
Bashynska and Beaumont learned on June 28 that their senior Grand Prix debut will come at the fifth stop of the Series, from Nov. 17-19 in Espoo, Finland. The field there includes reigning World champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States, and Canadian champions Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Nikolaj Soerensen.
Lane has watched her young charges develop into a much more mature and consistent team over the past season, capable of producing clean skate after clean skate — something they did not always show in the previous campaign. And she says “they are in exactly the right place now to move into senior. Their mental skills have caught up with their physical skills.”
Now, Lane sees in them what she calls “the performance triangle: the connection between themselves, the music and the audience. If you can do that, it moves you to a different level. There are programs that you watch and then there are programs that you live. And I think they have that ability to live in the moment and create those moments.”
(All photos: Danielle Earl/Skate Canada)