Madison Hubbell and Gabriella Papadakis debuted their new professional partnership at Art on Ice 2025. I spoke to them backstage in Zurich about providing an example of what open-gender ice dance can look like, and their advocacy for change in the sport. Gabriella Papadakis is the 2022 Olympic Gold Medalist in Ice Dance and a five-time world champion. She was also a guest on the Future of Figure Skating episode 33. Madison Hubbell is the 2022 Olympic Bronze Medalist in Ice Dance and is now a coach at the Ice Academy of Montreal's London, Ontario branch. Gabi and Maddie are long-time friends and former training mates who always dreamed about skating together in shows.
Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ZDDaryNEvErb6DSn499IDNomPS87X4jfugQ5S1nErM/edit?tab=t.0
Video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Qxa0ERLdR4o
Gabi's article on substack "The Case for Same-Sex Figure Skating" makes great reading as well! https://substack.com/home/post/p-154177649
The two are skating at Art on Ice to the live performance of Marius Bear's song "Not Loud Enough" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uyMdINdqvI
Thank you to the Art on Ice team for facilitating this interview, and to Ivan Daniluk for filming and editing.
You can reach me with comments or suggestions for topics and people I should talk to, by email at fsfuturepodcast@gmail.com, Instagram at @futurefspodcast, or at futureoffs.bsky.com
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