With all eyes of the winter sports world on northern Italy for the next three years, the Italian Ice Sports Federation held the Grand Prix Final in Torino this past week to boost its profile. His first season in the Olympic cycle, which will end in Winter Olympic – Milano Cortina Hills in 2026, produced four gold medals in the main Grand Prix series, two bronze medals in the Final, plus a junior men’s title for Nikolay Mamola.

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We are happy that Italy is improving said Marco Fabric, who won the ice dance bronze medal with partner Charlene Grignard in Saturday’s Final. We have really good skaters now, which is good for the development of our community. There’s a lot of pressure to skate in front of your home audience, but sometimes there’s no motivation.

Grignard and Fabric are 33 and 34 respectively, so by the time Milano-Cortina comes around, they may have to pass the torch to the next generation. But so far they are four-time winners in Italy, finished fifth at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and won the French and English Grand Prix in November.

They, themselves, took the torch from 2014 World Champions Anna Capelin and Luca LaMotte, of whom he finished second in seven consecutive Championships in Italy. Grignard and Fabric are also coached by Barbara Fuser Pole, who won a bronze medal at the 2001 World Championships and the 2002 Olympics with Maurizio Margallo.

Winter Olympic: Spotlight on Northern Italy — The Grand Prix Final and Ice Sports’ Future

Sara Conti and Niccole Maci were in disbelief after winning the bronze medal in pairs at the Grand Prix Final. We have never done what we had planned, so we are speechless Maxima said.

The team posted a new personal-best 187.02 points, and the 22-year-old Conti added that he would like to keep the momentum going for the second half of the season. You can read Winter Olympic Milano Cortina 2026: Karen Chen Joins Cornell Figure Skating Team

We’re very happy for them because we know they’re hard workers and they deserve it Fabric said of Conti and Maci. This year is particularly significant for pairs as it marks a transitional phase with new couples and teams. I’m thrilled that they made it to the podium. I think Italy is doing really well in every discipline. We have a really strong team and we’re excited about it.

Rebecca Girardi and Filippo Ambrosiana were fifth in the Grand Prix Final. The Grand Prix Espoo doubles winners were 14th at the Beijing Olympics, a spot behind seven-time Italian champions Nicole Della Monica and Matteo GU arise. Nicole Della Monica retired in 2021-2022, but GU arise is now skating with a new partner, Lucre Zia Beccaria. They made their international debut in the ISU Challenger Series, Warsaw Cup, in November.

Now the Italian pair skating team, they start young with our coaches and there’s movement Ambrosiana said. We try to tell young kids about skating and the desire to compete he said.

Gaillardia and Ambrosiana train with Conti and Maci in Bergamo, Italy, with coach Franca Bianco, among others.

Winter Olympic: Excitement in Pairs Figure Skating — Conti and Maci’s Bronze Medal Triumph

Skating in Italy is improving from having only two pairs before, now there are many Gaillardia added. They’re getting better for the men and the ladies. All the teams are working together.

Perhaps the loudest was Torino Pala vela in the Grand Prix Final when Nikolay Mamola won the junior men’s race. The 19-year-old with curly hair, hailing from the Milan suburb of Monza, won the Riga Cup earlier in the Junior Grand Prix season and also earned two senior-level Challenger series medals. He joins the Italian men’s pool, which includes Daniel Grass and Matteo Rizzo.

 Grass, 20, was sixth in the deep senior men’s competition at the Final in Torino. He entered the competition with a victory in the Grand Prix, the MK John Wilson Trophy in Sheffield, England, and placed seventh at the 2022 winter Olympic. Grass is the first European country to land four lights.

Winter Olympic: Growth of Figure Skating in Italy — Rising Stars and Future Aspirations

Additionally, the 24-year-old Rizzo became the first Italian to win a Grand Prix medal, winning bronze at the NHK Trophy in 2018. On the same day as the Grand Prix Final, he won a silver medal behind Team USA’s Camden in the Pauline ISU Challenger Series, Gold Spin from Zagreb in Croatia.

Everyone in the conference is just amazing, from Daniel Grass to Matteo Rizzo Mamola said. If I want to be there winter Olympic 2026. I have to be as good as them. To get there, that’s the best way. My goal is to add four jumps to my program, but I haven’t developed as a skater yet. I know it must look bad. I know I’m not ready for four jumps, and you have to make sure you do that.

In terms of the women, no one has risen with the pedigree of 2012 world champion Carolina Costner. Lara Nazi Guttmann, 20, is the reigning Italian women’s champion. She participated in the team event of the 2022 Beijing winter Olympic, of which Italy placed seventh. Guttmann went on to finish 20th at Worlds, and this week, she was fourth at the ISU Challenger Series event, Golden Spin of Zagreb.

Winter Olympic dreams brought figure skater Deanna Stellato-Dudek back to the sport

Maturity is a plus, not a minus. It’s one of the many confidence zingers that Deanna Stellato-Dudek delivers while telling her fascinating story.

He’s a 40-year-old doubles figure skater who wants to compete for Canada at the Winter Olympic 2026. It’s an winter Olympic dream he left unfulfilled when he retired from sport at 17 years old.

The Chicago native was a silver medalist at the 2000 junior world championships in women’s singles for the United States, but withdrew due to injury. She got on with life – finished high school and started working as a medical esthetician.

Once he turned 30, he abruptly abandoned his burgeoning career in 2016 to become a skater again, sober.I was super clear when I first put the skates on Stellato-Dudek recalled to The Globe and Mail earlier this month. I went in that first day to come back and do the winter Olympic he said.

Now the trip is on full throttle. He and 31-year-old Mont realer Maxima Descamps are Canada’s top duo – a partnership that has grown since auditioning together in 2019. They’ve won a national title and a handful of international medals. Their first competition at the ISU Grand Prix is this weekend at Skate Canada International in Vancouver.

Winter Olympic: Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s Inspiring Comeback Journey

The discipline has long required young players – jumping, spinning, flipping – to be fearless enough to be thrown through the air on blades to be fit enough to work on a daily basis. The next oldest contestant is like 24 he jokes.

The older he gets, the faster he learns, and he is now much more physically aware than he was when he was a teenager. He talks on a different level with coaches now, too: We’re all sharing input, versus being coached the way I was when I was a kid. Now they don’t have to tell me what to do.

He has many supporters. Yet he notes naysayers, too, especially on social media, with their biting criticism – those who don’t know him but expect a 40-year-old figure skater to have limitations.

There are good people who are strongly opposed to me and will speak negatively about me, he said. I’m on a personal mission to prove to those people that not only can I do it at this age, but I can be competitive. I won’t just be there. I’ll be on the podium.

It was on a work retreat in 2016 that she had the ah-ha moment that forced her to get the skates out of her mother’s basement 16 years later. In an activity with her colleagues, Stellato-Dudek had to answer the question, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t make a mistake?

His answer: Win a winter Olympic gold medal.

Winter Olympic: Deanna Stellato-Dudek’s Bold Comeback and Determination

All I could think about in my car was going home, he said. I don’t believe what I said.

He was in the thick of a successful career. Working for a plastic surgeon, he handled the non-surgical side of his business, which included procedures such as photo manipulation and aesthetic sculpting. He built it from its inception into a seven figure business.

Can she return to figure skating? His teenage years in the game took place at a different time, while still using 6.0 score, during a high day for single women and stars like Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya. On top of her world junior silver medal, Stellato-Dudek won the ISU Junior Grand Prix final in the 1999-2000 season.

In the years since her retirement, she has stayed in good shape with Pilates, running and weights. On his first day back in the ring after 16 years, his double jumps came right back. For three months, he skied four early mornings a week before work, plus every Saturday. Later, he took a few days off to consult with his old teacher, Cindy Watson Carpel, in Florida.

The coach said he looked like a skier coming back from an injury layoff of several months, not someone who hadn’t worn boots in a decade and a half. Other American coaches were there and knew Stellato-Dudek. One suggested the five-foot skater try doubles – an idea he rejected as a teenager, but in the second round, he was ready for anything.

You have to be a special kind of girl who likes to throw things around, to put things down, and to get high in the air, he said. So I tried it, and man, I really liked it.

Deanna Stellato-Dudek: A Remarkable Return to Winter Olympic Figure Skating

Stellato-Dudek did competitive sports as a child, so the memories of flying high and facing down are familiar. He decided to ski full time and quit his job. He moved to Florida to partner with Nathan Bartholomew, who played for the US in the 2014 Olympics.

They competed together until the beginning of 2019, when Bartholomew was injured. There were no seasons to wait for Stellato-Dudek to recover, so they parted amicably. He was worried about finding a new partner because of his age.

I was like 36, 37 at the time, and all the guys were definitely going to be younger than me he said. They have to make a decision about skiing with me.

A coach recommended Descamps, a Canadian who worked with eight partners. They were quickly fired up and Stellato-Dudek canceled out his other attempts. He was impressed by his rock-solid strength on the ice and his determination to keep going.

I thought ‘how did I not know about this guy’ he said. And why hasn’t he conquered the worlds?

Stellato-Dudek moved to Montreal to study with him, and they both studied his Canadian citizenship and became an American citizen. The Canadian option seemed more promising so they began the process. He is hoping for a Canadian passport before the winter Olympic 2026.

Not long after they teamed up, the disease came, which interrupted their competition and training. They also faced other obstacles: waiting for his release from the US Figure Skating Association, and overcoming illnesses.

Deanna Stellato-Dudek: Navigating Challenges on the Path to winter Olympic Dreams

I was able to throw in the towel, but I still have unfinished business he said. I didn’t want to depart with that same feeling. The landscape of athletics has changed after the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Some of Canada’s top couples have retired or split up.

Russian competitors were prohibited from participating due to the war in Ukraine. The stage was set for the new pair to push their way onto the podium. Descamps and Stellato-Dudek, led by José Picard, won gold at the Nebelhorn Trophy, silver at Skate America, gold at the Grand Prix de France. They finished fourth in the Grand Prix Final, claimed victory at the 2023 nationals in Oshawa, and secured fourth place in the World Championships.

The 2023-24 season has begun. The World Championships will take place in Montreal in March. They need to keep up the pace and become more technically motivated to stay among the best Canadians and fight for medals. Stellato-Dudek has a passion for technical details and aspires to become a ski judge one day.

When people look at them this year, they’re going to notice a much stronger team, said Mike Slipshod, senior director at Skate Canada. They were close last year, just on the verge of winning a world medal.

Their short program in Oxygen from Cirque du Soleil celebrates French-Canadian culture. Their free spin on Interview with a Vampire tells a violent story in which Stellato-Dudek portrays a vampire and bites Descamps, prompting a costume is displayed in the vehicle view. She delved into vampire books, movies and TV shows. He says his on-ice skills have improved with age.

Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxima Descamps: Chasing winter Olympic Glory in a New Era

I’m a woman, I’ve been in love, I’ve had heartbreak and relationship turmoil Stellato-Dudek said. I can bring that life experience to my image on the ice.

While a quick warm-up was fine in the teenage years, he considers a full hour warm-up before rolling now non-negotiable. She does it often at home at night, taking Epsom-salt baths and using cold water in her apartment. It also works hard in the mental area.

When you’re really tired, your body can do it, your mind doesn’t want to says Stellato-Dudek, who uses exercise videos and works with a sports psychologist. You have to find a way to get up and push yourself to do it.

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