Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps look to reach mountain top again at figure skating worlds

Despite their reigning champion status, Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps won’t be the favourites at worlds this week in Boston.

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps won gold at both their Grand Prix assignments last fall and defended their Canadian title in January, but they have struggled to deliver clean short and long programs in the same competition.

Injuries and illnesses haven’t helped.

Deschamps, a 33-year-old from Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., fell seriously ill in November. He lost 10 pounds during a four-day fever, forcing the team out of the Grand Prix final in December.

Stellato-Dudek, now 41, also revealed she’s battled through shoulder, ankle and wrist injuries.

“I jokingly always say I’m the least injured one at the rink and I’m the oldest by far, because it’s the teenagers who always have some kind of ache and pain,” she said in a recent conference call. “But this year I was like a teenager with all of my little injuries here and there.

“Last year, we had no illnesses, we had no injuries. This year it’s been like sickness after injury after sickness after injury.”

The latest hit came before last month’s Four Continents Championships in Seoul, where Stellato-Dudek took a hard fall and badly bruised her “glute” area, forcing her to avoid jumps and throws for a week until the competition’s first official practice.

“That plane ride was not fun all the way to Korea,” she said. “I had to lean left the whole time.”

Following that setback, they managed to post a season-best score of 210.92 — still well short of the personal-best 221.56 posted last year in Montreal — to claim silver behind 2023 world champs Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara of Japan.

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps placed fourth in a shaky short program in Seoul. But after that “worst-case scenario,” Stellato-Dudek said they skated freely in a stellar long program to their underwater-themed routine, one they’d struggled with all season.

They’ll aim to replicate that relaxed mindset at worlds.

“Practice all year has been going really well. It’s been the competitions that have been a little bit harder for us,” she said. “At some point, it has to translate, and maybe we just needed to relax a little.”

The reigning world champions say they’ve felt the weight of holding on to that title all season, but Deschamps said the hardships have only made them stronger.

“Either it brings you more together, or it separates you. And in those circumstances for us, it’s bringing us together,” he said. “All together, we can climb that mountain.”

The pairs short program is set for Wednesday evening at Boston’s TD Garden, followed by the long program on Thursday night.

And the competition will be stiff.

German pair Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin — last year’s bronze medallists — hold the season’s best score at 218.44, followed by Miura and Kihara’s 217.32.

Georgia’s Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava and Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolò Macii have also scored higher than the top Canadian duo, who are trying to just focus on themselves.

“What we really want for us is just to go out there and be proud of what we’re doing,” Deschamps said.

“If we’ve done two really good programs, that’s going to feel like we won anyway,” added Stellato-Dudek. “It’s about getting off the ice and being content with yourself, which we have not been able to do in both programs yet all season.”

One hurdle Stellato-Dudek did clear this season was gaining her Canadian citizenship, allowing her to compete for Canada at next year’s Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy.

The U.S.-born skater says she’s proud to represent Canada on American soil amid the trade war between the two countries.

“I am now a Canadian citizen, which is the honour of my life,” she said. “I have family that still lives in America that will be at an American worlds to come watch me.

“Sports really is one of the few things in the world that really brings people together from all different nationalities in all parts of the world, and I really hope that this world championships does that for everybody.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2025.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press

<!– Photo: 881bd3e71269fb380afb804d4bd37025e9e3c231d44b596bfbc8550c90162b4f.jpg, Caption:

Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps of Canada compete in the pairs short program at the Skate Canada International figure skating competition in Halifax, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

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by Canadian Press

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Stellato-Dudek, Deschamps look to reach mountain top again at figure skating worlds

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