'That was like a pinnacle in our careers'
For Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, the road to the Skate Canada Hall of Fame began with a breakthrough national championship in 2012 in New Brunswick
Always, it comes back to Moncton. The city in New Brunswick that Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford will always associate with the most significant triumph of their careers — the one that proved to be an essential launchpad for all the greatness that would follow for one of Canada’s most decorated pair teams ever.
It is fair to suggest — and Duhamel in particular has referenced this often — that the 2012 Canadian figure skating championships were a career maker for two skaters who saw each other as one last chance to reach their biggest skating dreams. World championships, Olympic medals … they’re all part of the resume that earned them enshrinement in Skate Canada’s Hall of Fame (they’re part of the Class of 2025 along with four other teammates from the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic team: Patrick Chan, Kaetlyn Osmond, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir).
None of that happens, however, without that magical moment in Moncton.
“That was like a pinnacle in our careers. It was one of those things that, growing up and going to Canadians … I’d been at Canadians in senior since 2004 and so eight years later, nine years later, after being at nationals at the senior level at that time, you kind of start to give up hope that it’s possible to win,” Duhamel says now. “I had been second twice, third twice, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth … I had done all of all the spots, so it was kind of like, maybe it’s not meant to be.
“But with Eric, we still had that tiny ball of fire still alive inside. We seized the moment at the perfect time, and we were just so ready for that moment. It was such a defining moment of (us thinking) wow, maybe we can do something.”
Says Radford: “It was a moment of self-belief that was ignited … I think that we were always trying to prove to ourselves and to everybody that we could be as good as we believed we could, and then it was confirmed in that moment that we became senior national champions.”
If you were there that night in the old Moncton Coliseum when they skated to gold to the strains of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and “Yellow,” you haven’t forgotten the raw emotion that followed their long-awaited triumph. And you knew it just meant so, so much. And it was just so darned memorable, if you knew their stories.
“Eric moved away from home when he was 13, and I moved away when I was 14 with a sole purpose to win a national title,” Duhamel said at the time, after the gold was secured. “It took 12 years. It took a long time, but we never lost hope. That was the one thing we had going for us through all the ups and downs, in singles and pairs, with our other partners. With each other, we always believed.”
Before they first teamed up in 2011, each had been through multiple partners and while there were certain successes along the way, a Canadian title always proved to be elusive. Duhamel pondered retirement when her previous partner, Craig Buntin, chose to retire after the 2009-10 season, in which the duo fell short in their quest to skate on home soil at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
As fate would have it, a tryout was suggested with Radford, with whom she already had built a friendship (both came from small towns in Northern Ontario). In their minds, at least, it wasn’t exactly a smooth first impression together. But while they didn’t see it at first, coaches Richard Gauthier and Bruno Marcotte (now Duhamel’s husband) knew they had something.
“In my head, 2010 was the end of my career. Skating didn’t go past Vancouver 2010 at that time and then I didn't make Vancouver 2010, and my coach says, OK, you guys should try out. And we were like, yeah, we’re friends, so sure, why not, let’s give it try,” said Duhamel. “It was so awful that I remember leaving the tryout thinking, I guess that’s not going to work. Well, I tried and that’s it. Then our coaches were like, OK, this is going to work. We were like, did you not just see us work?
“But we just we trusted our coaches, we trusted those small steps up the ladder, up the mountain to our goal, and that’s what we did so well with every season. We showed up better than the year before. We went from seventh in the world to fifth in the world to third in the world, then first in the world. It was just a steady climb and a consistent climb. We just did the work.”
Radford’s mind was also wandering in different directions after 2010 until, that is, he found just the right match to chase his biggest skating dreams.
“We were both at a bit of a crossroads and I remember thinking that I always felt like I could go to the top but I was like OK, it just it didn’t happen and I didn’t find the right partner,” he said. “And I was starting to look at different universities and going back to school and that was going to be it. Then all of that happened. When we started, we paired up and then had this incredible career together.”
A year after that breakthrough triumph in Moncton, the successes began to pile up in a major way. They landed on the podium with a bronze medal at 2013 Worlds in London, Ont., then repeated the feat a year later in Saitama, Japan. In between, Duhamel and Radford made their Olympic debuts in Sochi, Russia, where they placed seventh in pairs and helped Canada to a silver medal in the inaugural Team Event.
As it turned out, they were just getting started. What followed in 2014-15 was an absolute dream season, in which they were golden from start to finish. In addition to claiming their fourth straight Canadian title (they would eventually stretch that mark to a record seven in a row), Duhamel and Radford were unbeaten internationally — winning both their Grand Prix events (Skate Canada and NHK Trophy), the Grand Prix Final, Four Continents Championships and, to cap it all off, one final gold at the World Championships in Shanghai (the first Canadian pairs team to accomplish that since Jamie Sale and David Pelletier in 2001).
“We started to skate for ourselves rather than trying to be what other people wanted us to be, and that was where we had that sort of breakthrough Muse program and I think (choreographer) Julie Marcotte just found the right recipe for ourselves where our styles and our energy met,” Radford said in explaining their extraordinary success. “And then when we started to skate for ourselves, we were just more free when we went out for competitions and then we just had such great skates that entire season and built the momentum up. Then, by the end of the season, I think we knew that the world championship was ours for the taking. We just had to go out and have two good skates.”
The duo came home from the Sochi Games emboldened to put a new style of skating on the ice and also ramped up the technical side of their skating. It proved to be an unbeatable combination, with Duhamel saying by the time they arrived in Shanghai, there was only one way they saw the season ending.
“We definitely did (see a World title) because we had been undefeated all season and our biggest rivals had been a Russian team (Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov) who, at the last minute with withdrew from Worlds. All of a sudden our path to a World title, if one can say it, got easier because our most competitive rivals weren’t going,” she said. “That first Olympics the year before, we came seventh and we went home from that season and we revamped our skating style. We learned the throw quad and it became a little bit more of us skating for ourselves now.
“I went to the Olympics, I’ve done all these things, now it’s on my terms. I want to learn the quad throw, here it is. I want to skate to rock music, here it is. That was the mind frame that we were in that season and we were so consistent. So we went to Worlds without a doubt that our goal was to win and without a doubt, we were pretty confident we were going to nail two good programs because we’d done it all season long.”
Their golden run continued through the beginning of the 2015-16 season, all the way to the Grand Prix Final, where they placed second behind old rivals Stolbova and Klimov. After retaining their national title in Halifax, Duhamel’s illness forced a withdrawal from Four Continents, their last warmup for Worlds. And when the planet’s best skaters descended on Boston, the defending champions weren’t exactly seen as the favourites to bring home pairs gold again.
Simply put, the field was much more loaded than it was in Shanghai.
“That Russian team (Stolbova and Klimov) was back. Another team that had won the Olympics in Sochi (Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov) was back and the Chinese, (Weng) Sui and (Cong) Han, they were kind of on the rise. And then Aliona (Savchenko) was back with a new partner (Bruno Massot),” said Duhamel. “All of a sudden, the landscape of pairs changed So I remember going to Worlds in Boston and we’d won everything that season except the Grand Prix Final. So we still had great results, but I remember going to Boston and we were thinking, we could skate well and come sixth or we could skate well and we could win. It can go anywhere.”
Duhamel and Radford found themselves more than two points behind the front-running Chinese after the short program. But then followed an absolutely epic free skate to Adele’s “Hometown Glory” — it says here it was the defining program of their careers — that pushed the Canadian duo back to the top of the World podium.
So astonished was Duhamel that she exclaimed “how did we just do that?” as they approached their coaches following that exhilarating performance.
“I think there might have been a swear word in there” Radford deadpanned (oh yeah, there most certainly was. And yes, a microphone near the ice picked it up loud and clear).
“That was just a magical moment in itself. The crowd in Boston I'm pretty sure was three-quarters Canadian, if not more, but there was a lot of Canadian energy and that was really, really special,” Duhamel said of their free skate. “I felt like we went to Worlds to win that year in Shanghai and then the next year, it was like we went there for ourselves, to be proud of ourselves, to put out the best we could.
“It was a different energy; we were in a different mind frame, a different maturity, and that happens with the evolution of skaters and people. But it made the win in Boston more special. I can say I often forget about winning in Shanghai, but I never forget about that performance in Boston. It was magic.”
Said Radford: “They always say winning it for the first time is amazing, but it’s actually way more difficult to repeat and that’s one of the most challenging things. So to come back and be able to win consecutive World titles … with the first one, everybody knew it was ours to lose, and the second one, nobody thought that we were going to be on podium. To go out win it was just the best feeling.”
A year later in Helsinki, it was a completely different story. Radford came into 2017 Worlds injured and the performances just weren’t there. They tumbled off the podium to seventh place but, as they’d soon discover, it was a major blessing in disguise heading into the Olympic season. When Duhamel and Radford arrived in PyeongChang for what would turn out to be their final competition together, they did so without the weight of being three-time World champions or something like that.
After two years of being rest of the world’s target, it was a refreshing feeling.
“I know it sounds cheesy to say, but I really do believe that everything happens for a reason and I think that just getting swept off the radar was the best thing that could’ve happened and was probably something that contributed to our success in the Olympic season,” said Radford. “When you’re not on the radar, you don’t feel the pressure and you don’t feel all those eyes on you, and the expectations. When that’s removed you're just feel lighter and more free to be able to go out and perform for yourself.”
(it should also be noted that, heading into the Olympic season, they made what some felt was a startling decision to drop Gauthier from their coaching team and put their trust in Marcotte to guide them toward the biggest event of their lives).
No Canadian skaters at those Olympics had a more demanding schedule. Duhamel and Radford skated both programs in the Team Event, then had to turn around and do it again in the pairs competition. But they didn’t back away from that challenge even an inch, so determined were they to be a part of the “dream team” that came to Korea for nothing but gold in their sights and delivered in the biggest of ways.
“We knew we were going to do it all and we were prepared for it and I think that we trained knowing that was going to be our schedule so that when we got there, we were ready,” explained Radford. “It was nice to go out in the Team Event that just has a different dynamic. You’re sharing the burden with a team and even though you go out and skate by yourself, you can feel it. You really do feel it. You see your team members there, you hear them cheering. It’s a different dynamic than when you’re just by yourself. We had great skates in the Team Event, but then we really peaked in the main event so it all really worked out as ideally as it could.”
To hear Duhamel tell it, that gold medal in the Team Event was an extra bit of fuel for them to go out and get their own hardware in the pairs competition.
“I remember being on the Olympic podium then getting the gold medal and being like OK, in two days I’m coming back here to get my bronze medal. I knew it and it wasn't like I’m going back there to get another gold medal,” she said. “I like my chances for a medal in the pairs event. Logically, it was the bronze and I stood on that podium and thought, I can’t wait to be back here in two days, like I just knew it.”
(for the record, this observer had exactly the same thought after the Team Event, that these two were going to skate their way onto the pairs podium).
They also came to PyeongChang knowing it was going to be their competitive swan song together. So why not spend as much time skating across the five rings as possible.
“I remember many times throughout the summer leading into that season Scott (Moir) asking us a lot, are you sure you can do all of that because the pairs was the first event after the Team Event,” said Duhamel. “So he was often asking us out of genuine concern, are you sure this is a good idea, we don’t want to hinder your own pairs event. But I knew it was my last Olympics. We thought it was Eric’s last Olympics. So we were going to skate as much as we could, because it was going to be our last time on Olympic ice.”
They brought back “Hometown Glory” for those Winter Games and one more time, it was glorious. They free skate score they earned in Korea (153.33) was the second best of their careers, just a shade behind the number the same music produced for them two years earlier in Boston (153.81). It was a dream finish to their final Olympics together.
“I could not dream of a better way to end it. We competed four times and it was four amazing skates. It was exactly how I would’ve ever dreamt of ending my skating career and I never ever thought twice of playing with that moment and trying again because it was perfect,” said Duhamel. “There’s nothing else I feel I could’ve done in my career. I did everything and more that I feel was possible for me. I would say in a way, I overachieved on what was my limit.
“So yeah, I could leave PyeongChang with my head held very high, knowing I did everything I could. I literally retired the day of the long program. The media asked if we were going to Worlds and we said no, that’s it, we’re done. I felt just so satisfied and so complete with what I did as an athlete.”
While Duhamel did indeed hang up her skates after PyeongChang, Radford emerged again three years later for one final season of skating with a new partner, Vanessa James. It brought him to a third Olympics, in Beijing in 2022, where they finished 12th. At the ensuing Worlds in France, they claimed a bronze medal.
The duo are still active on tours, most recently with ice dance legends Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in Europe, and both were part of the “Dancing On Ice” reality television show in Britain (Radford was paired with Charlie Brooks, best known for her acting role on the TV series “EastEnders”).
Radford, now 40, has become so enamoured with London that he is moving there within the next week or so. It’s where he feels “there’s a lot of opportunity there for me when it comes to music (he’s an accomplished pianist) and potentially coaching skating as well.”
“I toured with the senior pair team that was at the last world championships (Anastasia Vaipan-Law and Luke Digby, four-time British champions) and Britain has an Olympic spot. I’m friends with their coach, so I’m hoping to be able to use all my experience and expertise and just be able to help and give back as much as possible and maybe try to develop skating in the UK.”
Duhamel, meanwhile, is raising a family with Marcotte in Oakville, Ont. They have two daughters: Zoey, who’s five and already on the ice in figure skates, and Miya, who turns three later this month. Marcotte is perhaps the most accomplished pairs coach in Canada — he was recruited by Skate Oakville to start the pairs program there — and Duhamel has found a passion herself in helping to grow the next generation.
“We have quite a few pair teams. I have some little babies, like six, seven and eight-year-olds that I coach, which I love, and then I run all the off-ice training for the skating club that we work at,” said Duhamel, who’s 39. “So I’m very busy and into coaching at every level, and I love it.
“Sharing what I learned in my skating career with skaters, with athletes and with coaches … it’s why else did I have these experiences and learn all these lessons if I can’t share them with the next ones, right?”
The Hall of Fame honour has given Duhamel and Radford time to reflect on a remarkable run together that lasted through two full quadrennials, during which they achieved the kind of greatness few pair teams in Canada have enjoyed (they’re one of only three pair teams from this country to win multiple World titles).
On top of that, they got to be part of the greatest collection of figure skating talent ever assembled by Canada at a Winter Olympics. The “golden generation,” as we’ve called it here many times. One that came to PyeongChang, four years after a silver medal finish in Sochi, with only one thought and goal in mind.
“We brought a lot of experience from Sochi, because we were all on the team together in Sochi. So we all learned a lot through that experience and we were all at this point in our careers in PyeongChang where it was like this cumulative moment of our careers,” said Duhamel. “This was the end of the road for so many of us and we knew it was the end of the road, so we kind of shared that special bond as well, which is really, really cool and it was just a really unique energy. I remember Scott was kind of the leader of it; he was winding everybody up and getting everybody excited, like we’re going for gold. We don’t want silver again. What do we need to do to get gold?”
And as Radford put it, “we just had amazing timing where in each discipline, we had skaters who were just at the top of their game. I just feel like it was very special, it was very rare and it was perfectly timed that we all happened to be at the very top of our games in 2018 and it just all came together and culminated there.”
More than anything, Duhamel and Radford found what they needed in each other, at just the right time. Both describe it as the ideal match that just evolved over time into something greater.
“We were really the perfect complement to each other and what each other needed in our skating to be the most successful — the balance of energy between the two of us and the common goal to be the best and how do we get to be the best. And we just had this very workmanlike, business relationship,” said Duhamel. “We showed up at the rink every day, we knew our goals, we knew what we needed to do to reach our goals and we were just on the same page almost all the time.”
Radford pointed toward their shared small-town background in Northern Ontario as a connection in itself, with a similar passion for the sport. And they always loved pushing the envelope, trying new things (they were the first team to ever land a quad throw at an Olympics when they landed a throw quad Salchow in 2018).
“We both really loved figure skating and were fans of figure skating in a similar way. We definitely had different personalities; I was more introverted, she’s more extroverted,” he said. “And I think that a big thing is just our technical prowess and our lack of fear to strive for something that’s never really been done before, including the side by side triple Lutzes, the throw quad and being able to do them consistently like that is not easy. And nobody’s done it really since … when I go back and I watch the performances, what we were able to achieve technically was really impressive.”
There was never a question of talent with this two, or their willingness to strive to reach the greatest heights. But everything needs a catalyst at some point to get things going, to instill the kind of belief that exists in every champion. For Duhamel and Radford, that when and where will always stick with them. That was the power and the springboard that came out of those 2012 Canadian Championships in Moncton.
“One hundred per cent (it was the catalyst). From there, I think our confidence just soared and all the things that were just dreams, all of a sudden they became realistic goals, because there’s a difference between a dream and a goal. You have all these lovely dreams and all of a sudden, now it’s like whoa, this could be real. I could really do this,” Duhamel said of the transformative moment of their skating lives. “We were challenged for years after at Canadians by Kirsten (Moore-Towers) and Dylan (Moscovitch). Then (setting) a record for Canadian championships, we really learned how to be competitors.
“Those stressful high performance situations became our best skates, so anytime we got in that position in the later years, where the competition was tough and the stakes were high. we were like, this is where we shine. This is where we’re going to be good, and that just became our thing.”
National team is set
Skate Canada unveiled its national team for the 2025-26 season earlier this week (the full list is here). Those selected for the team were medal winners in the four senior disciplines at 2025 Canadians in Laval, Que., and/or be assigned to a Grand Prix Series event this fall via the International Skating Union’s Grand Prix selection meeting.
The group of 24 athletes includes three newcomers — Katherine Medland Spence and David Li, both bronze medallists in Laval, and the pair team of Fiona Bombardier and Benjamin Mimar, who have been assigned to Cup of China for their Grand Prix debut.