During the late 1990’s, the only thing a teenaged Deanna Stellato-Dudek dreamed of was competing in figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Italy. 

She enjoyed her dance lessons and loved competing in gymnastics, but there was something about figure skating that clicked like nothing else. Before school, she was the first at the rink each morning, creating mini routines, blasting CDs of Celine Dion with the ice all to herself. Her coaches often had to coerce her to stop practicing 'You’ve done enough for the day. Time to take off the skates,' she recalled them saying. 

Two decades later, not much has changed: She still doesn’t have an “off switch,” happy to train until she’s told to stop, and once again, she dreams of competing at the Winter Olympics in Italy.

But those two decades, between the 2006 Olympics in Torino and the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics next February were not exactly linear. Unlike the Tom Bradys and Wayne Gretskys of the world, Stellato-Dudek’s longevity features an unheard-of 16-year hiatus.

After earning silver at the 2000 World Junior Championships, Stellato-Dudek suffered from a cluster of hip injuries she couldn’t quite shake. The recovery protocol meant taking so much time off the ice that it felt insurmountable. She left the sport, went to college and bounced around different majors, before completing a certification as an esthetician, enjoying a successful career in the industry. But in 2016, shortly after her 33rd birthday (many years older than retirement age for most skaters), she returned to the ice with an unshakable sense of unfinished business.

In 2024, at age 40, she became the oldest woman figure in history to win a world title, and if everything goes well at the next Olympics, she again will be making history for her age.

“I do not go a day, I think, not hearing about my age,” she said laughing. “But I have to say at this point, I carry it with pride.”

It’s more than just pride; she sees her age as a benefit, not a hindrance. 

Growing up, Stellato-Dudek constantly experienced small injuries, taking time off for back pain, a pulled groin, and a myriad of issues she never really addressed. Full of energy, she rarely warmed up or down - she never felt she needed to - and in a growing body, she felt she was always having to relearn skills she’d already mastered.

 I looked like I'd been off the ice for six months, not 10 years

“You have a different mindset when you're younger, because you can get away with so much - the world gives you an inch and you take a mile,” she said. “Now, being older, I have more soreness than I did when I was younger, but I have less random aches and pains, because my body is settled - it's been this size now for 20 plus years, and I know how to take care of myself.”

It’s that greater sense of self, along with a fearlessness to just say ‘yes,’ that has defined Stellato-Dudek’s second career on the ice. 

“When I came back to the sport in 2016, my deal with myself was that I had to go at it with utter, reckless abandon and with everything I have,” Stellato-Dudek said. "I want to be 80 years old, sitting drinking a glass of wine and, whether I succeeded or didn't succeed, knowing I gave it everything I had."

This is a quality she’s always had. She never wanted to regret not skating that extra hour or doing that extra dance class. And so, when she stepped away from it all, there was a void she didn’t know how to fill. 

“You don't realize all the things that skating gives you until all of a sudden you don't have them,” she said. “It gives you routine, it gives you discipline. And also, skating gives you this artistic freedom that you can't capture any other place.”

Her whole identity had been so wrapped up in figure skating (in art classes the animals she drew wore figure skates, any still life drawings were of skates), and when there was no more figure skating, she didn’t know what else could drive that creative energy.

While at college, someone reminded Stellato-Dudek how she always asked for spa treatments when offered rewards or gifts. “I think it’s so funny now,” she said. “I have no idea why I wanted a facial when I was like, 12.”

She got her medical esthetics certification, and then certified for laser, and then injectables, and pretty soon the kid who had dreamed of climbing to the top of the Olympic podium was running a successful esthetics operation within a leading medical practice.

“I felt like I really found my niche,” Stellato-Dudek said. “By the time I left, there were five practitioners underneath me – six of us total.”

It was with her co-workers – playing a game at a work retreat – that the idea to return to the ice first took root. Everyone had to choose a card, each one with a different question, and slowly the group shared their answers. “It was very serendipitous,” she said. “My card said: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And I just immediately blurted out that I would win an Olympic gold medal.”

As the rest of her co-workers around the room continued to give answers, Stellato-Dudek sat back, stunned. “I couldn't believe that came out of my mouth. I thought that I had parked that part of my life, and had moved on.”

In the following days she called her mother, asking if her old skates – rusting unused for nearly 16 years – were still in the basement. Luckily they were, and heading out onto a public session at her local rink, the then 32 year-old went to see what she could still do. 

Within hours she was shocked to find she could land all her double jumps. Still, she was unsure how realistic a second career in the sport could be, so she created a challenge: if she could work toward getting back in shape every single day for three months she would take the idea seriously. 

At the end of three months, she booked some lessons with her old coach and asked if returning to competition was crazy. 

“She said to me, I looked like I'd been off the ice for six months, not 10 years,” Stellato-Dudek said. And that was when she decided to really go for it. 

She chose to return to the sport in the discipline of pairs, and first partnered with Nathan Bartholomay, competing for the United States. While she wouldn’t need as many triple jumps in that category (which relies more heavily on unison and a slew of other elements to dictate ranking), she did need to learn lifts, partnered spins and a new approach to training. This is perhaps where her gymnastics training from decades before came into play, and when you watch Stellato-Dudek skate, there is an unmatched joy that spreads over her face every time she’s lifted into the air.

“I love lifts. I joke all the time that when I fell in love with pair skating, it was love at first lift,” she laughed.

After a three-season partnership, highlighted by back-to-back U.S. national bronze medals and multiple podium finishes, Bartholomay suffered an injury, and the pair chose to split amicably. Stellato-Dudek went into action, calling every coach and connection she had in figure skating, hoping to find another partner. That search led her to Maxime Deschamps in Montreal, and it wasn’t hard to see what a perfect match he would be.

“Max was so hungry to succeed,” Stellato-Dudek said. “He had the same hunger that I did, and in certain aspects, having the same hunger and desire to succeed is actually even more valuable than talent. And I was very lucky because Max is also talented.”

In 2024 the pair became world champions, and later that year, Stellato-Dudek was granted Canadian citizenship, ensuring the team will be able to make a bid for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

While the 2024-25 season proved more difficult for Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps - the duo finished fifth at the world championships and fourth at the World Team Trophy earlier this year - focus remains on the Olympic podium. 

“Someone close to me once said to me: 'I think that what you're doing is bigger than you.' And I've always kept that close to my chest,” she said. “It kind of takes some stress away from me that what I'm doing is more just symbolic for people of an abnormal age, doing something new in life.”

So many people would have read that card back in 2016, laughed at themselves for thinking of wanting an Olympic medal in their thirties, and left it at that. Not Stellato-Dudek. And no matter her results in February, this is how she will be best known. She has pushed the perceived boundaries of the sport in pursuit of a dream, and she hopes others will follow her to do the same.

“I really hope that someday, somebody breaks all of my records because they saw me do it when they were a young girl,” she said. “That's what would make me the most happy. And that's really what I hope people take the most from my story.”