The Decibel - Defying time and biology: the Olympic skater making history

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Canadian figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek will make history this weekend at the age of 42, as the oldest female figure skater to compete in the Olympics in nearly 100 years. She’s had a remarkable journey to get to the Milan Cortina Winter Games, including 16 years away from the ice.Today, Globe reporter (and passionate figure skater) Robyn Doolittle tells us the story of how Stellato-Dudek got to these Olympic Games, what it takes to become an elite athlete in your 40s, and how athletes are pushing the time limits of their careers.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A Canadian figure skater is set to make history at the Olympics this weekend. But not because of any medals, because of her age. Diana Celado Dudec is 42, and she's the oldest female figure skater to compete in the games in nearly 100 years. It's been quite the journey for her to get here, including more than a decade away from the sport. And she's not the only older athlete at the Milan-Cortina Winter Games. There are many others in events like alpine skiing, snowboarding, and bobsledding,

testing what we tend to think of as a best-before date for Olympians. Today, I'm talking to Globe reporter Robin Doolittle. She's at the Olympics and spent time with Deanna Estolato Dudec late last year. Robin will tell us how Deanna got back into skating after years off the ice, what it takes for older athletes to make it in the Olympic Games, and how athletes like her are pushing the world. retirement deadline for elite sports. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail.

Hi, Robin. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited about this episode. Me too. Can you tell us where you are right now? I am sitting on a bench outside the long track venue, about to go watch the women's 5,000 meter. Okay, speed skating, but we're going to talk about figure skating. And I want listeners to know that you are a figure skater yourself. So I'm sure that you're very invested in this story. Not at the level, of course, just in case it needs underscoring of what we're going to be talking about. But yes, I have been a figure skater for 30 years. I still skate. I

skate in an adult syncro team called Trinity. I am 41 years old. So this story hits for me in a way that is deeply, deeply personal. Yeah. And so yeah, yeah, Deanna Salado-Dudec is 42. I will also say, for the record. I am 41. You know, everyone's talking about how old she is, but can we just set the record that 42 is not that old? We're just two young women discussing sports. That's what's happening right now. Exactly. So again, not that old, but is it for elite sports? A 42-year-old pairs figure skater is unprecedented in the modern world. I find myself struggling for words to explain just how monumental it is for a 42-year-old to be a pairs skater. This woman is doing her triple jumps. She is doing triple twists. She is doing death spirals. She is doing insane lifts. She is doing what 18-year-olds are

struggling to do. It is insane. Can you, for people that don't know figure skating too well, explain how hard that might be to do these flips and these spins? Oh my God. How do you even get into it? So figure skates are really hard, right? There's not a lot of ankle movement in them. She is landing on her knees. She has to launch herself high enough in the air to get three revs around and then pick and then do it again and combination jumps. Like it's extremely athletically demanding to be a figure skater in general, but a pairs skater, it's the most dangerous of the figure skating disciplines. Like these, as we've seen, I mean, not to, you know, spoiler alert, she was injured right before.

the Olympic started and had to pull out of the first event. Like, it is incredibly dangerous. She's doing, she put in a backflip in her short program, which has never been done before in pairs. Deanna is training for an Olympic performance here, and that is hours and hours and hours of every week in a body that is not necessarily designed for that. This is a young person's game, and she is just define time, biology, logic. It's incredible. Let's talk about Deanna herself and why she's such a star. How did she get to? into skating. What's the story there? Deanna was a single skater. This is how she began. She was born in Illinois. She was a really high level skater in the U.S. She was representing the states internationally.

If you're a figure skating fan, just chew on this for a minute. In Deanna's first version of her career, you know, 1.0, Deanna. Her main competitor was Michelle Kwan. Michelle Kwan. Think of how long ago that was. I remember Michelle Kwan. Yeah, Michelle Kwan, the icon, the legend herself. Deanna was kind of seen as the next big thing. She was a high level international skater there. She did really well in the junior circuit. She switched to senior. And then she suffers this catastrophic hip injury.

She's 17. She doesn't see a way through. It's going to take a long time to recover. And she decides to retire. She retires before the attack on the World Trade Center. Look, she retired in 2000. She retired before many of the current top skaters were even born. She moves on from skating. She has a career. She becomes a director in a plastic surgeon's office. She's totally focused on other parts of her life. And then in her 30s, I think she was 32, she goes to a work retreat. And as part of that work retreat, they're playing silly games. And one of them is, you know, you're answering questions that you draw off of a note card. And her card read, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And she instantly blurts out, I would win an Olympic gold medal. And

this was really perplexing to her because she had been retired from figure skating for more than 16 years. She had not been on the ice. This was not something that was in the back of her mind. And, you know, when I went and saw her in September, she was talking about, she was just really surprised at herself for saying this. And she actually kind of sat with it for two weeks and asking herself questions. Like, why did I say skating there? So then she calls her mom and she says, mom, do you still have my skates in the basement?

She gets her skates. She puts on her skates. and she goes to kind of a public rink in Chicago and just kind of, you know, bombs around for a little bit. And she gets back almost, I think she gets back all of her double jumps and her first try. This alone is unreal. And so now she starts going to a rink in the mornings before work and tells no one. And she calls her old coach, who's now in Florida. And she says, this is insane.

I've started skating again. Can I come down there and can you watch me? And can you tell me if I've lost my mind? Deanna goes down to Florida. She performs in front of her old coach. And she says, okay, give it to me straight. Am I insane for trying to make a comeback? And her coach is like, I don't know what to tell you.

Like, you look great. You look like someone who's been off the ice for six months. You don't look like you've been off the ice for 16 years. I honestly, I'm just, I'm hanging on to your every word. I'm just so inspired by this story and how she just puts on her skates and is great again. So, yeah. I mean, what lengths does she? gone to for this goal of winning an Olympic gold medal? She quit her job. She left her home. She

moved to Florida. And really early on, they make a decision that, you know, the sport has changed a lot, and it probably makes sense if she switches from single skaters, from being a single skater to being a pear skater. You know, she's really petite. She says she's five feet tall. I'm pretty skeptical of that. And she's a really good jumper. She's very consistent jumping. So she switches to pairs. And, you know, it's all figure skating, but pairs is super different. You have to learn. all these new skills. You have throw jumps. She has to learn twists. So this is where, you know, a pair team is going kind of backwards and then she picks and gets thrown in the air and looks like she's doing a triple jump horizontally in the air above her partner and then gets caught. She has to do lifts.

This is where skaters are being lifted, you know, nine feet off the ice and doing these insane balancing acts on like one hand and then flipping out of it. She's doing death spirals. Like she's doing pairs spins. It's just a whole new suite of skills that she's learning. She joins with an American first and they get fourth at their first nationals. Huge outcome. But then he gets injured and she doesn't have time to wait. And she emails everyone she knows in the world. She reaches out to everybody she can and she hears back because the skating community is not that big from this pair skater, Maxine Deschamp, in Quebec. All right. And so and she even gets her Canadian citizenship to compete for Team Canada. Well, that just happened pretty recently, actually.

How it works is you can compete internationally in international competitions if one of the partners is a citizen, but at the Olympics you both have to be. So they believe that it is much more likely that they will get Canadian citizenship in time for the 2026 Olympics than if they were trying to get American citizenship. Deanna moves to Montreal now. And then she starts training with Maxime and their coach, Jose Picard, who is a legendary Canadian pairs coach. Okay. Okay. And so we've talked about how she's quite a bit older here. The other skaters on Team Canada that are a pair's duo are 21 and 29, for example. So how does she think about her age? Yeah, I mean, she's asked this so often. You'd think she'd get sick of it. But I think she also understands how extraordinary it is. She says her age is her superpower. She says that for one thing, she has a much better understanding of herself and her body and what her. body needs to be successful. She, you know, is much better at managing nerves and stress. She's

much more mature. So, you know, she really leans into her age as an asset. We'll be right back. Okay. So I'm curious to hear from you, Robin, when she's on the ice, can you tell that she's a quote unquote older skater? Absolutely not. Athletically, Deanna looks the exact same as every 20 year old out there. You know, when you're up close to her, she's gorgeous. You know, she looks not 20. I really want to underscore. She's gorgeous. But no, athletically, like, she is doing everything. And in fact, what's really interesting is Deanna and Maxime are, I think, like, the most athletic of the Paris teams out there. Like, they are really explosive as a couple. Their lifts are just really high and really strong. Their jumps are really big. So she does not at all stand out. Well, she's

stands out in a good way. Something tells me that Deanna is not like the rest of us. She sounds superhuman. Do you know what? Okay, so I wrote this big story about her and this incredible journey that she's been on. And part of the story was looking at, you know, just the advances. And how is this possible? How is it possible that a 42-year-old is competing in Paris figure skating?

And not just competing, but contending for an Olympic podium because we haven't mentioned. But, like, they have won the Canadian Championships. They won the world championships in 2024. Like they are in the mix for a metal. How is this possible? There's all sorts of really interesting things on the science there. But I did talk to one academic who was like, it's also possible that Deanna is just actually superhuman. And if you did a study on her body, she's probably one of the freaks that's like actually like 21 years old.

Physiologically. I'm glad that you've finished that. But there's still lessons for the rest of us. Yes. Let's get into the lessons because there are older athletes that are competing in the Olympics. So what is it like for older athletes? Like, what do they need to consider that younger athletes don't? Yeah, I talked to Dr. Anna Ararat, who's like one of the premier sports physicians in the world.

And she was saying, you know, the really big change in addition to, you know, people not smoking, not drinking, getting their sleep. The differences between, you know, now and decades before is that there's been really big advances in our understanding of the importance of recovery. In the old days, she said that the thinking was. was push yourself as hard as you can and you will see big results. And now we understand that you push yourself hard and then you give yourself the tools you need to recover. And so when you're exercising really, really hard, you are getting tiny little micro tears and injuries in your muscles. And you need to, one, give them, you know, the actual physical rest, but also the nutritional tools to heal themselves. different amino acids. So this is about, you know, your protein intake and all the other

supplements and good stuff that athletes need to be consuming. And then you, you want to reach this thing called supercompensation. And that basically means, okay, you've torn something and it's going to heal back better, faster, stronger. And you've got to really prioritize the recovery process. And, you know, in older athletes also, I talked to Dina and Maxime's coach, Jose Picard, and she was talking about that they have to, they're very, very, very, very, you know, aware of their age. They have to make different decisions. Whereas with younger athletes, they may be drilling their short and free program multiple times of practice. With Maxime and Deanna, she doesn't want to tire them out really early in the week because they have a whole

week of training to do. So they might run smaller sections. They'll focus on individual elements. They have to be really strategic about how they train so that she doesn't push them too far, that they don't push themselves too far. Can you walk us through Deanna's recovery regime? What does she do? So, I mean, one of the big things was she controls every single thing that goes in her body. The amount of water she has to drink every day is astronomical. You know, she has a certain amount of protein grams she has to hit. So, like, during the day, she's starting, she's popping dates. She can have no sugar, but she has dates because it's a slow release energy.

She doesn't like dates, but she's eating them for energy. She's having boiled chicken with nothing on it because of the protein, which she hates. it. She's never having alcohol. She's never having sugar. This was kind of one of the funny things she said. Like she's at competition sometimes and she sees her competitors, you know, mowing down cupcakes. And she's just like, I wish I could have a dessert before my free program. But she can't and she knows she can't. She finishes her practice routine every day. She goes home. She's getting massas. She's doing red light. She has like a DIY red light therapy at home that she'll lay under there for a while. She does cupping. to help facilitate repair.

She has these compression pants that she wears. It's a whole regimen that she has to do every single day. And she says she does it out of respect for herself, for Maxime, and for her dream of going to the Olympics. Yeah. I mean, I got to say that doesn't sound like a lot of fun. But I guess if you are looking for that medal at the Olympics, I mean, you've got to make sacrifices.

She told me she can have a glass of wine on a Friday for the rest of her life, but not right now. Robin, I want to ask you about something else that happened to the Olympics. So there's this other story of Lindsay Vaughn, the 41-year-old celebrated Alpine skier from the U.S. She was dealing with a ruptured ACL. She decided to still compete and she crashed dramatically at the Olympics. And she suffered a complex tibia fracture. There's been a lot of criticism around her taking a spot of a younger athlete, maybe not knowing the limits of her body.

There's a lot of discussion around that. I wonder, is there something to be said for knowing when your body has had a enough and letting perhaps the next generation compete? On one hand, I'll say yes. I won't speak about skiing because I don't know the rules as well, but here's what I'll say about figure skating. In figure skating, high placements mean that you get to send more teams to international competitions.

So there are multiple pairs teams at this event because Canadian teams have been placing well, because Deanna and Maxime have been placing well. So Leah and Trent, our second pair team here, they're super strong. They're super exciting. I think they're going to have an incredible career in the next Olympic cycles. Right now is Deanna and Maxime's time. They are capable of a podium finish with the scores. I would say Leah and Trent, you know, it's figure skating.

Anything can happen. But Leah and Trent right now are still a young team gaining that experience. So, I mean, it's not as simple as I think some people make it out to be that, like, oh, you should just make room. Like, okay, make room and then the young person, you know, gets experience, but maybe doesn't qualify other teams. So there's a lot more at play there. There's also something to be said of this woman has put her complete life on hold for a decade

for this moment. You know, when I saw that email that she'd been injured and she was going to get a miss the team event, and it wasn't even clear that she was going to compete. All my figure skating world, my figure skating group chats are all blowing up. Like, do you think? she's going to do it? Do you think she's going to do it? What do we know? And, you know, I was just thinking, like, if her legs are attached to her body, she will walk out on Olympic ice. Like, this is everything. So this woman is determined. And I mean, the bottom line is, like, no matter what, this is a huge

success. Like, she won the world championships. And she's inspiring, I think, not just so many women, but so many people. I think a lot of us cross 40. And you can, I have this feeling of like, is it over? It's not. Look at this. Look what's possible. I'm definitely inspired. I'm definitely inspired.

So Deanna and her partner, Maxime, are skating this weekend. What will you be watching for? The thing I'll be looking for is her backflip in there. She has a backflip in her short program. I will be looking to see what happens with that backflip. I think, though, for so many people who have, who are kind of following her story and fallen in love with her story, I think no matter what, the moment her blade hits that ice. It's going to be one of the most memorable skating performances, no matter what. It's going to be one of the most memorable performances of the Olympics.

I mean, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it. It's incredible what people are capable of. Robin, this has been so inspiring. Man, I'm so excited for this weekend. Thank you so much for joining us today. Me too. Let's take one quick second, though, and also shout out Piper Gillis and Paul Poirier, won Canada's first Olympic figure skating medal in eight years.

they got bronze in the ice dance last night. We like this, this is the skating crowd is already revved up. Love it. Robin, thank you so much. Have a good night, guys. That was Robin Doolittle, a Globe staff reporter and passionate figure skater. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland.

Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and Rachel Levy McLaughlin. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior. producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.