Winter Olympics 2026: At 42, Deanna Stellato-Dudek makes Olympic figure skating debut
At long last, Deanna Stellato-Dudek can call herself an Olympian. The 42-year-old Canadian figure skater made her Olympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026 on Sunday night alongside partner Maxime Deschamps, fulfilling a lifelong dream for Stellato, a former top junior skater who retired in 2000 for 16 years before returning to competitive skating in 2016.
While it was a dream stepping on to Olympic ice, their short program ended in a nightmare. With Stellato falling as she came back to the ice from their overhead lift, a costly error, the duo scored 66.04 and sits 14th out of 16 qualified teams for the free skate. “I feel like I’m going 100 miles per hour going down the highway,” Stellato said of her first Olympic experience. “I hope that people learn to never limit themselves. The only limits are the ones that you put on yourself.”
Stellato faced another significant challenge mere weeks before the Olympics when an injury in practice forced her out of the Olympic team event. Limited in her practice time, she was only cleared incrementally before flying from Montreal to Milan. “After I hit my head, we didn’t know if I was going to be able to make it here,” she reflected. “I’m super convinced all the positive messages I received helped in my recovery.”
Her journey has been detailed in the Olympic Channel documentary, Deanna’s Dream. Stellato made global headlines in 2024 when she and Deschamps captured the world pairs title in Montreal. Despite struggling to maintain top form, they remain elite contenders in the sport.
“To me, this has been a long time coming,” Stellato expressed. “I’m just lucky enough that I found the right partner to get me to these Olympic Games.” The average age of her peers in the pairs short program was around 24 years.
Their fall occurred during a group 5 reverse lasso lift, a strong element for the duo, making it more disheartening. “I was pretty proud of our performance until the lift. That was a massive point loss,” Stellato lamented.
Despite the setback, Stellato’s resilience is inspiring, pushing beyond doubts as she looks to defy expectations in the upcoming pairs free skate.
