Madeline Schizas

Schizas began learning to skate in 2006.[1] She placed sixth skating in the novice ranks at the 2018 Canadian Championships and won silver as a junior at the 2019 Canadian Championships.

In 2019, she served as a skating double during filming of the Netflix drama Spinning Out.[3][4]

Making her junior international debut, Schizas placed fifth at the Volvo Open Cup in November 2019 in Riga, Latvia. She then won gold in the senior women's category at the Skate Canada Challenge, qualifying her to compete as a senior at the 2020 Canadian Championships.[5] At the Championships in January, she placed second in the short program despite performing only a double toe loop as the second part of her planned jump combination.[6] She was third in the three skate after making a number of jump errors, including four singled attempts at a double Axel, and as a result won the bronzel medal, finishing 7.47 points behind the champion, Emily Bausback, and 0.87 behind silver medalist Alison Schumacher. Schizas remarked afterward about "the four single Axels, I don't even know what I was thinking and the fourth one was an invalid combo, so there were some mental mistakes, but I think it comes along with experience which you cannot buy."[7]

In February, Schizas won gold in Group II junior ladies at the Bavarian Open.[8] Her senior international debut came later that month, at the International Challenge Cup in The Hague, Netherlands. Ranked sixth in the short and third in the free, she finished third overall behind Japan's Rika Kihira and Yuhana Yokoi and was awarded the bronze medal. Her score, 175.56, was the highest score by any Canadian lady that season, though it did not count to the official ISU Season Best Scores.[9] She was also the only Canadian lady to medal at any senior event that season. Despite this fact, she was passed up for the 2020 World Championships and the 2020 Junior Worlds, in favour of more experienced competitors.[10]

Schizas was named to the Canadian national team by virtue of being the reigning national bronze medalist.[11] She was assigned to make her Grand Prix debut at the 2020 Skate Canada International, but the event was cancelled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.[12] Schizas planned to introduce the triple Lutz jump into her programs for the new season, having worked on it for a few years previously without sufficient results. Repeating her short program from the previous season, she selected the music from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg for a new free skate, in tribute to ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, who had performed to it in the 2007–08 season.[13]

With the pandemic continuing to affect competitions, Schizas first won the Ontario Sectional Championships, held virtually. The 2021 Skate Canada Challenge was also organized virtually, filmed in November and December and then judged in January. She placed fourth in the short program, executing only a double toe loop as part of her combination and making a serious error on her triple loop. She won the free skate decisively, landing six of seven planned triple jumps, including a triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination for the first time. She won her second consecutive gold medal at Challenge.[14] This would have qualified her to the 2021 Canadian Championships, but they were cancelled as a result of the pandemic making it impossible to hold an in-person contest. Skating journalist Beverley Smith remarked "we can't technically call Madeline Schizas a Canadian champion", "but effectively, she is."[13]