Madeline Schizas took a deep breath, then made her feelings unmistakably clear.
The reigning national champion knows Gabrielle Daleman — back after years of serious injuries — is coming for the Canadian women’s figure skating crown.
But Schizas is determined to make sure she’s the one on the plane to Italy.
“She’s clearly put a lot of work into coming back, so I obviously respect a comeback, but, how do I put it…” she said, “over my dead body is anyone else going to the Olympics.”
Schizas and Daleman will go head-to-head at this weekend’s Canadian figure skating championships, where Canada’s lone women’s singles spot at the Milan Cortina Games will be on the line.
The women’s short program goes Saturday at Centre Slush Puppie, followed by the free program Sunday — after which the Olympic team will be announced.
Schizas is the front-runner. The 22-year-old from Oakville, Ont., has been the country’s best skater in the field since making her Olympic debut in 2022, winning three Canadian titles in the past four years and placing 11th at last year’s world championships.
She also holds the highest international score of any Canadian woman this season, a 188.60 set at Finlandia Trophy in late November.
“I feel really good,” Schizas said after a practice session Friday. “I feel ready to fight this week.”
Daleman, meanwhile, returns to her first nationals since 2022, dead set on becoming the first Canadian woman to reach three Olympic Games in singles.
And she doesn’t plan to let up this weekend.
“I’m like a witch, you can’t really kill me,” Daleman said. “I always come back, and I always come back better.”
The road back has been long and trying.
Daleman, days away from turning 28, was just 16 when she became the youngest member of Canada’s Olympic roster in 2014. She won a world bronze medal in 2017 and captured a team event gold at the 2018 Games.
Since missing the cut in 2022, injuries have piled up. It began with a serious car accident on her way to training that hurt her back, followed by back-to-back ankle surgeries in 2023 and 2024.
Daleman fell into a deep depression and “couldn’t function as a human being” after the devastating first ankle break, but her second somehow sharpened her focus for a comeback.
“You’ll have a year (to recover), you need to lock in if this is what you really want to do,” she told herself. “I’m like, you’re more than capable of doing it, so go for it. So I put the picture of Milan up in my room, created that vision board.”
Four days after the second surgery, Daleman was back in the gym, her father holding her up so she could avoid putting weight on her ankle. She then moved to Colorado Springs, Colo. — away from family and friends — to train with a sole focus on her return.
“I was like, it’s a do-or-die year, you need to go for it, and you need to go in with no regrets,” she said. “I wasn’t gonna let any injury, any illness, anything I’ve ever been through, all the struggles, and my God have they been awful struggles, set me back from my goal, what I love.”
In her return to international competition at the Ice Challenge in Austria last November, Daleman claimed gold with a total score of 181.04, putting her in the conversation for an upset at nationals.
She was clearly emotional arriving in Gatineau, at times appearing as though she might shed a tear while speaking with reporters in the arena’s mixed zone.
“I’ve been very up and down, just grateful to be back, especially considering there were a lot of days where I didn’t think I would be,” she said. “No one truly knows or understands how hard the last three years were.”
While Daleman is grateful just to be back, she’s still aiming to strike gold.
“Did we forget who we’re talking to?” said the upbeat, confident skater. “God yeah, it’s me, like results matter.”
Sara-Maude Dupuis, last year’s national silver medallist, also wants to be part of the conversation, saying it’s only right that she moves up one step on the podium.
Dupuis has one jump in her arsenal that no one else can match. The 20-year-old from Montreal became the first Canadian woman to land a triple axel earlier this season at Warsaw Cup in November.
She first landed the difficult jump during practice in 2022, but “lost it completely” until this past off-season, when she relearned it on a harness. She plans to attempt it in her long program in Gatineau.
“I’m really proud to have been able to bring it to competition this time,” Dupuis said. “And I hope to inspire other ladies and girls to say like, ‘This is possible.’ It’s just like any other jump, but it’s still not as consistent as other jumps.”
On the surface, Schizas appears to be facing more competition than in previous years, but she believes it’s the same game as ever.
“There’s always competition at a national championship,” she said. “I don’t know that this one feels any different. People like to talk, but I don’t really think that it’s a different game than it ever has been.”
