40-year-old Stellato-Dudek back to stage

Agency :
When Deanna Stellato-Dudek retired from figure skating at the age of 17 with a world junior silver medal but a series of debilitating hip injuries, she never could have guessed the best was yet to come.

A chance exercise during a work retreat sparked a remarkable comeback 17 years later that has led the now 40-year-old Stellato-Dudek and Canadian pairs partner Maxime Deschamps to be top-ranked at this week’s ISU Grand Prix Final in Beijing.

“Passion,” as she likes to say, “has no age limit.”

“I have such a passion for it,” Stellato-Dudek told Reuters. “I look forward to going in the rink every day.

I look forward to my recovery that I do at night. My favorite part is the day-to-day grind, improving and getting better and challenging yourself.

“When you’re younger, it’s just kind of what your parents drove you to, the activity that you did. If it was taken away from you, maybe then you would realize how much you loved it,” she added.

“But as an adult, you’re doing this because you love it, otherwise you just flat out wouldn’t do it.”

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps are undefeated this season, winning their two Grand Prix assignments and defeating reigning world champions Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara at the season-opening Autumn Classic.

Stellato-Dudek, a former singles skater for the United States, was working as a medical aesthetician when, during a work retreat exercise in 2016, was asked to answer: “What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail?”
Without hesitation she said: “Win an Olympic gold medal.”

Stellato-Dudek returned home to Chicago, retrieved her old skates from her mother’s basement, and embarked on “Career 2.0,” combining 4:30 am skating sessions with her 12-hour work days for the first few months.

Stellato-Dudek hopes her courageous career change can inspire others. “When I decided that I wanted to do this, I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t do anything irrational.

I had to prove to myself that if this was something I really wanted to do, I had to do something towards my goal every single day,” she said.

“I tried to metaphorically build a chain link fence and my goal was to never break the chain.

So, even if on a Sunday, I couldn’t find any ice, I would stretch or do something to make me better for the next day towards this insane dream that I had.”