Figure skating-Stellato-Dudek bounces back from accident to prepare for Olympic debut at 42

MILAN, Feb 13 : Canada's Deanna Stellato-Dudek says the past two weeks have unfolded like "a nightmare" after a terrifying brush with disaster when she hit her head in training that almost obliterated her Olympic dream in a heartbeat.

While Stellato-Dudek was feeling "totally fine" on Friday as she and pairs partner Maxime Deschamps practised for the first time at the Games, the emotional whiplash of nearly missing her Olympic debut after striking her head is still fresh. 

Yet if anyone is built to withstand such a scare, it is Stellato‑Dudek, the 42‑year‑old whose comeback has already rewritten what seems possible in an elite sport built on youth.

She is set to become the oldest figure skater in nearly 100 years to compete at the Games — a woman who left skating for 16 years, built a career and a life far from the ice, then clawed her way back to the top of the world. 

Simply standing on the ice with the Olympic rings splashed across the arena boards meant she had already beaten the longest odds she has ever faced.

But that does not mean the past days have been easy.

"The last week and a half has been a living nightmare that I would not wish on anybody," she said.

"But when I set out on this journey in 2016, not one person told me I would make it to the Olympics ... to know me is to know that I wasn't going down without a fight. 

"It's been difficult seeing that the dream was slipping under my feet," Deschamps added. "But I still believed in Deanna the whole time. We were still hoping, and that was important to keep that."

Stellato-Dudek and Deschamps missed figure skating's team event in Milan after her January 30 training accident. She would not elaborate on the injury except to say she did not suffer a concussion.

"I'm not