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Canada’s Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps during the free skating at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Monday.Yara Nardi/Reuters
Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps hit their free program’s final pose so enthusiastically that their noses crashed.
Satisfied with the skate, but stinging with pain, Stellato-Dudek headed to the kiss and cry area with tears in her eyes and blood about to dribble out of her nostril.
“Add it to the list,” she said afterward with a chuckle, in an allusion to her last two tumultuous – and injury-heavy – weeks.
The former Canadian and world champions finished their Olympic journey Monday night with a combined score of 192.61, far off the podium at 11th.
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However, just a week ago, it wasn’t clear that the pair would even get to compete in Milan. Days before they were set to the leave for the Games, Stellato-Dudek suffered a head injury at practice in Quebec. Skate Canada has provided few details about the incident, but it was serious enough that she had to pull out of the team event.
The final all-clear to compete in the individual pairs event came last week. The pair headed into Monday’s free program in 14th place after a fluke fall by Stellato-Dudek on the exit of their lift in their short program.
On Monday, Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps had a strong skate, landing both of their throw triple jumps, their triple twist and the lift that gave them problems during Sunday’s short.
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Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps on Monday.Claudia Greco/Reuters
However, Stellato-Dudek struggled with her jump sequence, touching her hand down after the triple toe loop – traditionally her strongest jump – and then failing to get the balance needed to take off for a planned double axel. The pair also both doubled their side-by-side triple salchows, which Stellato-Dudek said they had planned in advance.
“Obviously we lost two weeks of training leading up to this. We had to make strategic decisions going into the free program, but the way that we held that together after not doing a run-through for two weeks is pretty amazing,” Stellato-Dudek said.
Stellato-Dudek, who is 42 years old and is now the oldest woman to compete in Olympic figure skating since 1928, said they had not made a decision on competing at the world championships in March. She added that they would need to consult with her medical team to see if she was ready.
“This was a special circumstance. The Olympics are once every four years. Everyone kind of read my story, was like, ‘Oh goodness, we really want to be able to send her off.’ But worlds is something different. That’s every year,” she said.
Stellato-Dudek added that she isn’t certain she’s done with the Olympics either.
The one thing they were sure about: Their next stop was going to be taking a photo together with the Olympic rings.
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