Just two seasons after retiring from competitive figure skating, Keegan Messing is back. The fan favorite, two-time Olympian, and two-time Canadian champion is making a bid for his third Olympic Games. But whether or not he achieves that goal, Messing said this second act is all about rediscovering his love for the sport.
“When I retired [in 2023], I felt like it was my time to retire,” Messing said. “I was very tired. My daughter had just been born that January. I was struggling to just show up for training every day. I had been skating for 28 years, and I was just exhausted. I didn't love skating anymore.”
Throughout his long career, Messing has built a loyal fanbase not just in Canada but around the world. His entertaining and energetic routines, filled with fast footwork and risky tricks, regularly have crowds on their feet, giving him standing ovations alongside the biggest names in the sport. After retiring from competition, Messing was asked to join skating show tours in Japan, Italy, and across North America. He loved it, calling show life an "absolute blast."
Unfinished business
It was while on tour last winter that the idea to return to competition first began to take root. Playing around in a practice session with friend and former teammate Elladj Balde one day, he landed a quad toe loop (a difficult element in which skaters jump into the air, rotate four times and then land on one blade). “It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. But I was like, 'Man, I'm still capable of doing this stuff,'” Messing said.
While elite figure skaters typically will take it a little easier when performing in shows, Messing started pushing himself, landing quads, relearning jumps he’d abandoned and improving his stamina. On tour in Japan, his show cast mates started to take note, saying he looked stronger than ever.
I just got to a point where I was like, ‘I want to push my body again. I just want to see how far I can go,’
When he got back home, he began training his old programs, skating multiple hours a day to see if a return to competition even was possible.
Skate Canada officially announced his return, and while he doesn’t yet know which competitions he will be assigned to, he just completed choreography on two new programs, and he is excited for the next steps.
“If I don't go for this this year, I will have regrets about it for the rest of my life,” Messing said. “And so, succeed, fail – if I don't go for it, I will regret it, and that, at the end of the day, is what fueled the decision to come back.”
At the moment, Messing has his eyes on the Milan Cortina 2026 in February, but he hasn’t ruled out continuing beyond that. For now, he just wants to see how far he can go. “If I was smart, I would never come back to competition, because my body just hurts every day now. But again, I love it,” Messing said.
Training as an older athlete
Training at age 33 (he'll be 34 come the Winter Games) is a different experience for Messing. When he thinks back to training at 18, he rarely would warm up, and would throw his skates on, taking a few laps around the rink, before launching into triple axels and quad jumps without any repercussions. Where once he would bounce back from any falls or minor injuries, today a misstep means days of recovery.
“Now I'm skating around for 15-20 minutes on the ice, doing edges, warming up, knees, ankles, hips, all this stuff, before I even think about jumping,” he said.
But experience also has added a new layer to his skating. He once thought coaches telling him to slow down was a criticism – in his mind, going slow meant weakness. Now he appreciates the softer side of his movement, and how it actually helps, not hinders, his technique.
“I'm not trying as hard. I'm not muscling it anymore. I'm actually letting the jump happen, letting the edge take me to create more flow and rhythm. I think that's something that comes with age and maturity. Or maybe I'm a slow learner,” he said with a laugh.
Returning to train with this new perspective has afforded Messing a new appreciation for his sport and allowed him to address the demons in his head that caused him to step away two years ago. Questions of whether he was too old, and should be retiring, no longer plague him.
Canada only will be able to send one men’s figure skater to the 2026 Milan Cortina Games. Messing is aware that his return adds to the competition for that spots and does not expect his past results to impact the decision for ultimately who is assigned to the Olympic roster.
“Roman [Sadovsky] and Stephen [Gogolev] are doing great,” Messing said of his competitors. “It's not going to be handed to me, and I wouldn't want that either. I hope that we can all just have a good competition and have, honestly, the best time of our lives.”