{"id":291,"identifier":"Skating_201712_09","originPlatform":"print","title":"GIVING IT ALL THEY'VE GOT","teaser":"For Deanna Stellato, the best part about skating again is she can't wait for Monday mornings. \"As a 20-something going to work, I used to dread Mondays,\" she said. \"Now I look forward to them, because I get to go skate. It's","creator":"Lynn Rutherford","contributor":"Troy Schwindt","publicationName":"SKATING","issn":"0037-6132","publisher":"United States Figure Skating Association","coverDate":"2017-12-01T00:00:00","coverDateEnd":null,"coverDateStr":"2017-12","coverDisplayDate":"2017 December","issueName":"Skating","startingPage":30,"webUrl":"https://content.digitalpub.blue-soho.com/web/y5b2/0A1uvwc/Dec2017SKATING/index.html","printUrls":"/article/Skating_201712_09.pdf,/issue/201712.pdf","timePeriod":"2017","wordCount":1236,"reuseProhibited":"Ask","permissions":"","copyright":"Copyright ©2017 by The United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA), Colorado Springs, CO","rightsOwner":"The United States Figure Skating Association","coverImg":"Images/Skating_201712_09_001.tif","body":"GIVING IT ALL THEY'VE GOT\n=========================\n\nSTELLATO AND BARTHOLOMAY REDISCOVER LOVE OF SKATING\n---------------------------------------------------\n\nBY LYNN RUTHERFORD\n\nFor Deanna Stellato, the best part about skating again is she can't wait for Monday mornings.\n\n\"As a 20-something going to work, I used to dread Mondays,\" she said. \"Now I look forward to them, because I get to go skate. It's such a drastic contrast to when I had my normal work life, which I enjoyed, to now.\"\n\nHer pairs partner Nathan Bartholomay, too, looks forward to Monday mornings, even though they mark the start of workdays that have him at Ellenton, Florida's Ice and Sports Complex from 8 a.m. through 10:30 p.m., training, teaching and working in the pro shop.\n\n\"Dee worries if I'm going to be tired, but I have to pay for lessons,\" Bartholomay said. \"It shows you how much you want it, if you have to make sacrifices.\"\n\nStellato, 34, and Bartholomay, 28, are the sport's most unorthodox duo. The better part of two decades ago, Stellato was an up-and-coming star in a U.S. constellation that also featured Sarah Hughes and Sasha Cohen. A talented jumper, she won the 1999 Junior Grand Prix Final and took home a silver medal from the 2000 World Junior Figure Skating Championships, defeating Cohen and future European champion Sarah Meier.\n\n\"She had an amazing work ethic, even as a little kid,\" Cindy Watson-Caprel, who coached the youngster in the Chicago area, said. \"It was not a normal coaching situation, where I had to drag her through her run-throughs. Deanna took me along for the ride.\"\n\nBut in 2001, Stellato withdrew from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with a recurring hip injury. It was a last straw: cumulatively, in a four-year time frame, Stellato had only been able to skate for two years, due to injuries.\n\n\"It was a gigantic letdown and hard for my 17- or 18-year-old self to rally back,\" she said.\n\nHer 30-something self is made of sterner stuff. In the spring of 2016, while working as director of aesthetics at The Geldner Center, a state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery practice in Chicago, she again felt the siren call of the ice. Her husband, Michael, a consultant, was supportive. Reconnecting with old coach Watson-Caprel, now a coach in Ellenton, Stellato decided to test the waters in Florida.\n\nBartholomay, meanwhile, was a bit at loose ends. His partnership with Gretchen Donlan ended after the pair withdrew from the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. There had been a few tryouts, but nothing clicked, so the 2014 Olympian and U.S. silver medalist \\[with Felicia Zhang\\] planned to coach full time.\n\nMitch Moyer, U.S. Figure Skating's senior director of athlete high performance, visited Ellenton last spring for a pairs seminar with Russian coaching great Tamara Moskvina. He saw the 4-foot-11-inch Stellato landing triple jumps, knew Bartholomay was available and suggested a tryout to Ellenton's head pairs coach, Jim Peterson.\n\n\"Deanna had never tried pairs before, but she took to it very, very quickly,\" Peterson said. \"She landed the first throw triple (Salchow) she tried. I've only seen that happen with two other girls.\"\n\nBartholomay, too, was impressed.\n\n\"I don't think I've lifted this well ever in my career,\" Bartholomay said. \"She is so strong going up, that even when the timing is not just right, it's a pretty simple process. It's equal parts lifter and liftee pushing to make it happen, and for us, it just works.\"\n\nThe skaters made a quick start last season, placing an impressive fourth at their first U.S. Championships. Since then, they've upped their technical content considerably, including more difficult triple twists, lifts and triple jumps. The path has been challenging at times, but always satisfying.\n\n\"We started working on a (triple) twist October or November of last year, and when we did it at nationals, we got Level 1,\" Stellato said. \"Then we got a Level 4 for a triple twist we did this summer, and I read (on social media), 'Oh, no way they did that!' I thought, 'Does this person think I'm not going to get any better?' They don't know me.\"\n\nIn March 2017, Peterson asked Vancouver-based choreographer Mark Pillay to create a contemporary free skate for his pair. After meeting Stellato and hearing her story, Pillay settled on a U2 medley including \"One,\" a song written about the reunification of the band. The choreographer thought it captured Stellato return to the sport she loved.\n\n![Skating_201712_09_001](Images/Skating_201712_09_001.tif)\n\n\"The group (U2) had a split, and then came back together — I just thought that really spoke to this pair,\" Pillay said. \"There is a quality in pair girls that is different than anyone else, and Deanna has it. She has the kind of mentality that is required. ... I think she has really found her niche now.\"\n\nThe pair placed sixth at two early-season events, the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Finlandia Trophy, making strong attempts at a throw quadruple Salchow, a difficult element only one U.S. pair (Tiffany Vise and Derek Trent) has ever landed in competition.\n\n\"Part of our goal was to go for high-risk difficult elements,\" Bartholomay said. \"We're really happy with our attack on the (throw) quad Salchow. ... We believe in our program and we are going to keep pushing through with it.\"\n\nU.S. Figure Skating's International Selection Committee was impressed enough to award the pair a spot at 2017 Bridgestone Skate America, held in Lake Placid, New York, over Thanksgiving.\n\n\"It shows they believe in us and what we're doing,\" Stellato said. \"We're adding so much density and content to our programs, and it's nice to have people believe you are going to deliver on all of that content.\"\n\n\"Our focus is to peak, or peak again, at (the 2018 U.S. Championships) in San Jose,\" Bartholomay said. \"Our practices are getting better, our jumps are getting more consistent. For us, because it's only our second season together, we're focusing on really keeping up the intensity in all of our run-throughs heading into San Jose.\"\n\nWhatever happens there, it won't be their last stand: the skaters plan to continue competing beyond this season, hopefully through the 2022 Olympics. Stellato 30-something self doesn't want to give up on the sport too early, a second time.\n\n\"I'm not doing this because it's what I've always done and I don't know anything different,\" she said. \"I was successful in another career. I came back because I wanted to skate.\""}