104 - Doping Case Leaves Clean Athletes Still Awaiting Olympic Medals From the 2022 Games - Evan Bates and Madison Chock

Hello everyone and welcome to the Anti-Doping Podcast brought to you by the Partnership for Clean Confedition. I'm your host Dr. Marie McNally and today we are joined by two fantastic guests, Madison Chalk and Evan Bates. Listeners, Evan and Madison are an elite eye-stancing team with numerous accolades, including being the 2023 World Champions and three-time Olympians. They were part of the Beijing 2022 US Olympic Figure Skating Silver Medal team that has unfortunately been caught up in what is now more than a year-long saga, still awaiting their medals as a result of a competitor's positive drug test. But we're excited to have them on the show today to share their story. So welcome to the show, Evan and Madison, how are you both? We are doing great. Thank you so much for having us on your podcast. Yeah, we're great. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for joining us and perhaps we can start at the beginning. So could each of you perhaps tell us how you first discovered your passion for skating? Well I was about five years old when I first started skating. My parents had been long-time fans of the sport, so we would watch it on TV together and I was so inspired by Michelle Kwan when I was young. So I took to the ice with her as my inspiration and skated in California for 13 years before I decided to move to Michigan with my family. There's a family decision so I could pursue ice dance and that's when I discovered a whole new world of skating that I absolutely fell in love with and a few years later that brought me to Evan and we began skating together in 2011 after skating together with previous partners. We have a very long, wonderful partnership as it continues and that's pretty much my origin story in a nutshell. Let me know if you want to elaborate more about it. That's where I'm from. Wonderful. Well what was it about skating that really peaked your interest? I think it was the creativity that I saw with the skaters on the ice. They looked like they had so much freedom and it just seemed so fun to have that flow and to be able to dance to the music and design a beautiful costume that goes with the theme of your program. All of the aspects of skating really appealed to me. I love the musicality. I love the different styles of dance that you saw on the ice. So it was really creatively fulfilling. Well that is amazing and Evan, can you share your origin story as well? Sure. So mine goes way back 30 years ago actually. I started skating when I was four years old. I grew up in Ann Arbor. Somewhat of a skating family I would say because my older sister was a skater and my aunt was also a skater and I remember that they would take me out when I was a young boy and we would do the public skating sessions together and I remember leaving with so much snow, compressed onto my sweatpants and my shirt because we had been just having fun rolling around on the ice. And like Maddie said, there's a freedom to skating that I just gravitated towards and loved so much. And as a young boy, I did play almost every sport under the sun. I think my mom put me in literally every single sports team that Ann Arbor sports had to offer but it was skating that really pulled me in and I started doing ice dance when I was nine years old, which I think is pretty young in the 90s to start ice dance and didn't start skating with Maddie until much later when I was in my 20s. But ice dance was something that was really unique at the time. I had never even seen it on the TV before or didn't know any ice dancers, but I just really enjoyed that kind of teamwork, sharing the ice with another person. We started taking off ice dance classes like Ballroom Dance and Ballet to supplement the on ice training. And so I started really liking this idea of dance and movement and then the way that we took that onto the ice with ice dance was something that was really unique and just captured me as a young boy. And so that's kind of my origin story fast forward many, many decades and I'm still doing it now with Madison, who is my partner off the ice as well. Been engaged now for the last year, we're in the midst of wedding planning amongst all of the other things we've got going on. So skating, I'm so grateful to my family for welcoming me into this world of skating because it's it's really just impacted my life so much and brought so many wonderful people into it. Well, that is phenomenal. And as you alluded to both of you, it sounds like 2011 was a fateful year. The two of you were brought together. So can you tell us a little bit more about that meeting and what it was like when you first started skating together as a pair? Well, we had already known each other for a few years at that point. So we were friends. We had a great rapport. So when we started skating together, that rapport just carried right onto the ice. We were always laughing and honestly having the best time, I think maybe our coaches were concerned about us getting work done. But no, we also shared a very similar work ethic. So we had goals. We were very driven to become the best ice dancers. But we also knew that a great part of that would be a lot of fun just because we got along together so well. And we skated together in Michigan for we did seven, seven or eight years in Michigan. Yeah. And then we moved up to Montreal and that's where we're currently training right now. And when we moved to Montreal, we kind of fell in love with the sport again. And really we're reinvigorated to just improve ourselves and become the best and keep pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones to create unique and memorable programs. So we're really grateful for our coaches in Montreal for that kind of renaissance of our career where we seem to be just like continuing to flourish and enjoy ourselves and enjoy our lives. So it's been an incredible treat to get that at this stage in our career. Absolutely. And Evan, is there anything you'd like to add to Madison's answer? I would add that the way we kind of came to be a partnership was I think, pretty serendipitous and unexpected. So many times in ice dance, you'll see these partnerships that have been going on for long time, almost some of the best skaters have been skating together since childhood. So when we were mad he was trying out with some new partners because her partner had unexpectedly retired and she was 19 and I was actually at the same rank, but we were competitors. Like she said, we had a great war. We were great friends, but we were actually competitors against each other. And we had the same coach and then in the summer of 2010, I had a very serious injury where my Achilles tendon was severed by escape. So that kept me off the ice for quite a while. And actually when I got back on the ice, I started looking for a new partner. So that was summer of 2011 right around the same time that Maddie's partner had retired and she was looking for a partner. So with every war, we were at the same rank, but the same coach, both looking for new partners. I already had a few different skaters come by to the rank to try out with her because she's a very popular skater. Everyone wanted to skate with Maddie. So I don't know if proximity was my friend or it worked out for me somewhere or another, but she did end up choosing me to skate with her. I'm grateful for, but I think without that injury to my Achilles and without just other things working out how they happened to as it always is in life, we look back on something that became a real crossroads for us and let us to one another. I think in the moment we would have never guessed that we would still be skating in 2023. Is that what year it is now? But like Maddie said, it was always about the chemistry and the relationship and the way we interacted with one another on the ice and off the ice was always the most fun and the most special part about our bond and then the shared love for skating, of course, and love putting our brains together and thinking of creative ideas to bring onto the ice, which is something also that keeps us wanting to continue. But yeah, that's my addition to our story. Will you two have an amazing story? It sounds like the stars really aligned to bring the two of you together and you've been skating together for more than a decade now. So Evan and Madison, can you walk us through some of the highs and perhaps some of the lows on the way to that landmark 2022 Olympic Games? Well, we certainly didn't have the smoothest start to our career. It wasn't just like medals and winning all at once. I would say we had some growing pains to work out the first couple of years of skating together. Our height difference, I think, was bigger than most dance teams. So that's something we had to learn to work with because our previous partners had been closer to each of our heights. So working on dance holds and just becoming one on the ice took a little bit longer and we started to find our groove and find the things we liked to do on the ice and the qualities that we were looking to shape. And we started in our second year skating together to have a bit more success and get the ball moving in our career and just enjoying the time that we spend on the ice still, but yet working hard towards the many lofty goals that we had set for ourselves. So as we progressed through our career, we won a national championship before the 2018 Olympic Games, but we did compete at the 2014 Olympic Games together. That was our first Olympics together as a team. Evan's second, he previously competed in 2010 with his former partner and 2014 was just a really fun experience for me personally because Evan knew what was going on. He told me all of the in's and outs and the tips and tricks of how to get the most out of your Olympic experience. So I was very grateful for that. Curious what advice I offered. Well, I think the first advice you gave me was to slow down because we got to the opening ceremony and I was so excited. I was basically sprinting out and around. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa. He literally grabbed my jacket and pulled me back. He's like, you can want to walk slower through this and enjoy it. And I was like, oh, good idea. Yeah, I'll stay here. You only get one lap around the stadium when we marched in the opening ceremony. And Maddie was like the summer Olympics and she was using bowl. They announced USA and Maddie just started sprinting like. Good help. But yeah. So we really enjoyed the 2014 games. Exploring Sochi was so much fun. And after we had a taste of that, I was like, well, I want to keep doing this and go to another Olympics. And Evan knew what that was like. Well, I think after Sochi, we took a step forward in terms of results. We had gone to Sochi and we had watched our teammates, Merrill Davis and Charlie White, win the Olympic gold medal. It was the first time a US team had ever won a nice dance gold medal at the Olympics. And we're very close with them. We had trained with them in the past. Charlie and I had been roommates and college for a couple of years. So we felt like we intimately knew their story. We had a front row seat to watch them become Olympic champions. And that was so inspiring to us. They ended up retiring from competitive skating after Sochi. And we felt like then it was our time to step up. And the next year we won our first US title. We won a silver medal at the World Championships. And during the next couple of years, we really felt like things were going great. We were ascending to our goal of becoming World Champions. We were on the World podium again in 2016. And then in 2017, the results started slipping a little bit. As we started getting close to Pyeongchang, we had a lot of adversity come our way, especially leading into the Olympics. Maddie had an injury. Do you want to share that story? Yeah, the season we were preparing for the 2018 Olympics, I sustained an injury at the very beginning of the season before we even started competing. It was before our camp that we go to every summer to show our programs and just the preparation for the season. And we had been doing a lift in just training really probably too hard for that time of the year. But we went up for a lift and my foot got stuck in the ice and I ended up having some bones chip off my tailless bone. And I was told I would need surgery, but I obviously didn't want to have surgery right before the season because that would take us out of the Olympic season. So I made sure I was all good with my doctors and my physio. And we just kind of managed that injury throughout the season. But it was very difficult. We had to limit our time on the ice and we just didn't have the amount of training that one would hope to have in an Olympic season. But we made the most of it and we came back fighting and won the free dance at Nationals. That gave us a lot of hope that there was a good outlook for us at the games. And then we had a very unfortunate incident in the free dance at the Olympics. But we just both kind of went splat in the middle of the program. And that was very difficult to even move through that at the Olympics. But we were so mentally trained to just continue and keep going that we got up quickly. And it was just a very very difficult competition and very difficult moment for us to kind of grapple with that that was perhaps our final Olympics game. And that didn't sit well with us. So we were like, well, we don't want this to be the end. This can't be the end. Now we have to keep going and write our story in a different way. So that's a moment that really was a turning point for us and sparked the change that we needed for something greater often. You don't realize that something incredible is to come when you're in the midst of one of those very low moments of life. And like Evan was saying about his Achilles that kind of was the turning point for us. Like when we partnered up and now this moment in our career was another turning point where we needed to make a big change if we wanted to keep skating and achieve our goals. So that's what we did. And that's when we went to Montreal and we're so grateful for that experience because it has just been so life changing for us and brought the joy back to skating that we had been missing those last couple years. Absolutely. And it sounds like after that things really turned around. You started getting some of the results you were hoping for. You were getting back on track. So what was that like? It's funny because once we really found the joy again, it just came through and are skating on the ice. And I think a lot of people noticed that our skating changed. And I would say at that point in the skating career, sometimes it can be really hard to make noticeable change. I mean, we had been skating together for already eight years. We'd both been skating for a few decades. So you'd cultivate some habits on the ice that can be really difficult to change after years and years of practice. But finding our joy again and changing our coaching team had a big impact on us. And we were honestly so surprised by how many blind spots we had developed. And these new coaches lovingly pointed out some of these blind spots and taught us just a different technique to skating. And the most wonderful thing about it was they didn't say this way is right and that way is wrong. They would say there are many ways to do this. And we're just showing you a different way. And maybe this will work or maybe that'll work or maybe you'll find a hybrid of the two. So I think the way that they taught us to approach skating, the way they taught us to treat our skating has been life changing. And that's the biggest takeaway, I think. And that's the message that I would hope to share if we were to go into coaching later in life or even talk about our skating in any way. It's the approach to skating that we've learned that we've loved so much. There's no right or wrong. There is just knowledge out there to acquire and to implement. And if you have a passion for it and you're willing to be a student and to be open to all this new knowledge, even at the tail end of the career, there are still gains to be made. And we certainly have been the benefactors of that. And I think the passion that we have for learning and for being open is what has served us well in this last chapter of our lives. Absolutely. And I know going into the 22 Olympics, you had already been seasoned competitors, both of you. I guess had the idea of other competitors doping, Ben, something that you really thought much about before the 2022 games. Honestly, it was not really in the forefront of our minds. We were so focused on our own skating and having so much fun competing and learning and just reinventing ourselves every season that, like, of course, we were focused more on our goals and what we were driven to do. But obviously, there was a huge doping scandal in 2014 that we were very aware of and the whole ackery's documentary, which I honestly didn't watch because I was still competing and I knew that it would just maybe make me upset or make me sad to know that that was happening and that maybe was still happening. So I really almost like pushed it out of my mind, unfortunately, but it is a reality of sport. And that was in a reality that I was wanting to come face to face with at that time in my career. But then fast forward four more years. And 2018, there was still the lingering effects from 2014 and then fast forward four more years, 2022 Beijing and we're right smack in the middle of another very high profile doping story. One that we were just directly related to and directly in the center of all of the chaos that ensued afterwards. So now it's in the very forefront of our minds. And we hope to inspire people to compete clean and know that you can accomplish your goals and you can be the best you can be without having to take any extra supplements. And just putting in the hard work and the dedication goes a very, very long way. Oh, absolutely. And Evan, was there anything you wanted to add in terms of your thoughts or what was going through your mind about doping or not going through your mind before this 2022 experience? I think what Maddie said really rings true for Olympic athletes preparing for the games. The focus is really narrow and it's very internal. Even with the sochi doping scandal and the other doping problems, we didn't feel like it was at the forefront of our minds. And it really took us by surprise when this all unfolded in Beijing. I think there is a common misconception that certain sports have doping in certain sports don't have doping. I know figure skating at least in my experience with people. People don't expect figure skaters to be using performance enhancing drugs. But it's happening. There are people trying to get an advantage in every single sport. And there have been doping violations in sports like figure skating and curling and sports that you might not associate with strength and power and using steroids. But it is a pervasive problem in the Olympic movement. And it's something that unfortunately has come about almost at every games, at least the winter games that we've been to in the last 12 years. So it is an issue and I'm very grateful for the platform today to speak on the podcast about our experience and very grateful to have spoken at the conference last month and to have met so many leaders in the anti doping movement. And to bring awareness to this movement that is so so important to protect the integrity of our sport. Absolutely. Well said Evan. And I think it is so important to break some of those misconceptions that you alluded to. And I'd love to dive into some of the details of your 2022 experience. So can you tell us a little bit more about your performance at the games, maybe how you were feeling when you saw those scores come through? Well, that was probably one of the greatest performances of our career up to that moment. It was so memorable. I remember coming around for our last footwork of the program and just seeing all of the teammates from USA, our friends from Canada. Everyone was just cheering so loud and it gave me so much joy and so much energy to finish that performance. And it was so memorable and we were so present that I almost remember every moment, but it also went by in such a blur. So that's kind of what you want your Olympic performance to feel like you want to be like lost in the moments and for it to feel fast, but then at the same time to also feel very present. And so we're lucky to have that. And it was such a special feeling to share that with with our teammates when we got off the ice and when the scores came up. it was just so exciting. We had won the free dance and it was ideal for the Olympics to win the free dance because you know that's a great feeling when you continue on into your individual events. Let's just share that moment with our training mates who we've known for years, decades even, was incredibly special and such a high moment of our careers. And then when the metal ceremony came around, if we were at all just been buzzing for the whole day and got our all our gear on, we're excited. We were ready to go down and we all met at the USA Common areas and then we were told that the ceremony had been postponed and we didn't know why there was no information and we were just quite confused and then 10, 15 more minutes go by and they say, oh the ceremony has been canceled and everyone was just very shocked. It almost felt like someone was playing a joke on us like no, someone was just playing a really mean joke. This can't be right. Right. Yeah, then it was and it was very confusing and we didn't get to have that moment with our team, the moment that we all share together, the moment that we had been dreaming of for the last honestly since I started skating so decades, at least 20 years. So that was really difficult and very underwhelming. It was like a balloon just being deflated as far as the energy and the outlook. We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know when it would be resolved to look back in history and you see the doping cases and some people have been waiting 12 years. I think it was the longest that we've heard. Someone waiting for their Olympic medal to be a right at it or ruled on. So yeah, we just entered this process and now I hope there's a end in sight soon but at the moment it doesn't seem like it's coming that soon. Definitely, I can only imagine the heart break, the frustration and as you said, also the confusion because you're still trying to get sort of gathered the facts and process everything in that moment where they told you that. So Evan, did you have anything to share from your perspective of what that was like kind of going from that ultimate high of the amazing performance that you two put out to the sort of downward spiral that led to that ceremony being cancelled. I would add that the medal ceremony is such a big part of the Olympic Games. That was my fourth Olympics and I had been to the medal ceremony to see friends like I spoke about Maryland Charlie earlier. We went and we stood in the crowd and we watched them receive their Olympic gold medal and we cried and we felt all the emotions. It's about more than the athlete at the medal ceremony. That's the moment where the family, the friends, the coaches, they all come and they hear the national anthem play. They see that medal being given to that athlete and they reflect on the journey, the journey that they're all part of and the medal is the icing on the cake. It is the physical manifestation of all of the hard work. It is the reward that you get to take with you and share with your group that led you through that journey and that you get to keep that for the rest of your life and when you leave the Olympics, often you go back to a great welcome to your home country. Maybe you go on a media tour. Maybe you get to have some unique opportunities that you would have never otherwise had before the Olympic medal. When our medal ceremony was canceled and after four Olympics, it was the first medal that I had won, the first medal, Matty had won. Actually, it was the first medal for I think 90% of our team. When that medal ceremony was canceled and that opportunity was lost, that was really difficult to deal with. I think in the moment when we were in Beijing, we didn't even realize the time frame that we would now be entering into and reflecting on it now more than a year later, I would say it's become more difficult to grapple with. As the Olympic buzz faded away and as we sort of realized the situation that we've come to be in and frankly, as many of the deadlines have passed and our case has not been moved forward in a timely manner and it has not been covered much in the media lately. I know it was a big media story when we were in Beijing, but I think quickly the new cycle is so fast now. People move on and unfortunately, when we talk about our story so often, people are shocked that we still don't have a medal and when we tell them, no, we still don't have a medal of any color, they can't believe it. And I think this is an unprecedented case where clean athletes have left the Olympic Games without the medal that they have rightfully won. And unfortunately, in this event, since it was a team event, we're talking about almost 20 athletes who left the games without that medal, who all performed clean and who deserve that recognition and deserve that Olympic medal ceremony. Absolutely. So can you take us back to that moment? I can't even envision what that would have been like was it just they made this announcement? The ceremony's going to be canceled and just like a hush fell over the room like, what do you do after you get that news? The entire Olympic experience in Beijing was already so different because of the pandemic, there were no audience members allowed. So we're competing in an empty arena. So many of the volunteers and things had to go through so many precautions. Every day we're seeing all the volunteers are head to toe and full PPE. It was a sort of dystopian experience that those games just because of the conditions of being in a global pandemic. We were grateful that the Olympics even took place, but so much of those games were just not like anything we had experienced before. So when we got to the part where they told us the medal ceremony was canceled, immediately we thought, okay, this is a joke or maybe there's some hackers who are just trying to pull one over on us here because there had been so many oddities to these games that we were like, what now? Just another oddity. Yeah. Of course. Here we are with another strange story to tell, but this one was so much more than just a story to tell. This was very real and this was happening in real time. And I think the athletes in particular weren't really sure of what was going on. And we found out just with the rest of the world as these pieces of information came out bit by bit. Remember the following day after the ceremony was canceled. Maddie and I were in the gym together doing a workout and a rumor started into swirl that this was a doping issue. And it was so hard to stay focused on our workout or the upcoming event because we all had to compete again. The team event was the very first event of the Olympics. It was actually the same day as the opening ceremony. And then all of the figure skaters had another individual event to do later on. Oh wow. So this medal ceremony being canceled and just this whole issue being unresolved cast a real shadow over the rest of the events. And it was honestly it was very challenging to block out all of the hoopla of what was going on. And we were bewildered. We heard rumors flying around. We didn't know if we were going to get a silver medal or a gold medal. We didn't know the time frame that it would take. So we just had no clue. And we were really kind of kept in the dark. And I think that's one of the lessons that we've learned about this was we would hope for more transparency in the future. We don't want these situations to ever happen again. But I would say that more transparency when it comes to these doping cases is really required, especially when there are so many athletes involved in a case like this. Absolutely. And Madison, was there anything you'd like to add? Not really. I think Evan said it very well. It was just one thing out of many oddities. And when something like this happens, it doesn't usually happen to you. And then we were a part of it. And so it really made us aware of all of the things that were maybe just not brought to light as much as they should be in our sport. And now it has given us a new goal, a new kind of movement that we really were passionate about and would like to help as much as we can. And that's just promoting clean sport. And to make sure that this doesn't happen to another athlete in the future because it is very difficult to work your entire life to accomplish this one goal that's just such a small moment in the grand scheme of things, but holds so much magnitude and represents so much of the hard work and the goals that you've worked towards your entire career. And to make sure that all athletes have equal opportunity to have that celebration and share that highlight that milestone in their career because it is really something special to behold and something even more special to be a part of. And we just want to make sure that every athlete has the equal opportunity to have their moment and complete clean and have that celebration with their friends, with their family and knowing that they are the best they can be in that moment. And they did all the work and just to feel all of that energy and that love in that one moment. Absolutely. And as you alluded to, it's not just representative of your performance at the Olympics. That's sort of like the culmination of all of the work, all of the blood sweat and tears that has gone into it over the years. And it's now been over a year. You're actually approaching the 500 day mark. And you and your teammates still have not received your Olympic medals. And at this point, you don't even know if it's going to be a silver medal ultimately or a gold medal. So how has this situation impacted both of you or your careers kind of trying to move forward from this Viasco? Well, honestly, it's been very disappointing the way that the time frame has worked out. And even still, the only news updates we seem to get are delay, delay, delay. And I think what's frustrating is that many of the skaters in our team have moved on to different chapters of their lives. Maddie and I are still competing, but many of the skaters have moved on to college or to coaching or to the next chapter of their lives because the career of an Olympic athlete is very short. And we all dream of the culmination being the Olympic medal ceremony. And that is the catalyst for other opportunities and doorways that open up. So to see many of our teammates move on and to know that the Olympic medal ceremony has been cancelled and that moment is gone. the moment can't be replaced. I'm confident that we will get an Olympic medal someday, but the moment in Beijing is gone and lost and cannot be replicated in the same way. And I think that that is something that is going to be difficult to repair. There's been a lot of damage done over the last few Olympic cycles in the way that doping has been handled. Frankly, the country who has continued to see the most doping violations is a country that maybe has not been reprimanded strongly enough to deter them from continuing with a systemic approach to doping a state-spontored doping system that has been uncovered and that has continued to this day and that has victimized a lot of clean athletes around the world. And it really needs to stop because the future of the Olympics, the integrity of the Olympics is at stake. And so many people around the world, including us, are huge fans of the Olympics and grew up being inspired by the Olympics. And we could have never guessed that we would someday get the opportunity to inspire young people around the world with our own performances at the Olympics. But I think our story is maybe something more and hopefully we'll get the opportunity to maybe move the needle a little bit in this push for clean sport. So we're still hopeful that an outcome will come soon and that the right outcome will come to fruition here. Yeah, I think you said it perfectly and hopefully this moment can inspire more advocates for clean sport in a way that gathers momentum and gets more people involved and brings more awareness to this issue that we do have in sport because the Olympics has been such a monumental competition as long as I can remember as almost as long as human history goes back. Like people have been competing and working for prestige to be the best just out of fun and just the honor to be the best athlete that they can be. And I think that's the true integrity of sport who you become on that journey to be the best is just enveloped in that Olympic Creed and that Olympic motto. It's about the athlete and unfortunately this has made it bigger than that. It has drawn in the politics and other people working in the shadows against this one true Olympic movement and the integrity of the athletes, the values that we hold dear to us as clean competitors. And just athletes wanting to be the best that they can be. Absolutely. I think you both said it so well. And I think this was a major setback a frustrating moment for you for the whole team as well as others impacted by it. But I love that your story didn't end there. I think for the two of you, you've gone on even stronger 2023 has been a big year for both of you with amazing free dance and rhythm dance performances that earned your personal best scores becoming world champions as we mentioned in our introductions and also receiving the world team trophy. So what has it been like to have such a phenomenal season after all of that frustration and stress surrounding the 2022 Olympic medals? It's been lovely. Honestly, we had such a wonderful finish to our season this year and accomplished goals that we had set for ourselves long, long ago dreaming of being world champions has finally come to fruition and we couldn't be happier about it. It's been a really special year. A lovely cap to the end of the season and one we're not soon to forget. But also we're still inspired. It doesn't change who we are and the journey that we've gone on to get to where we are and to become world champions. We're still the same people. It hasn't really changed just in any other way other than we're proud of the fact that we've accomplished our goal. But we're still hungry to improve and to keep learning and to keep pushing ourselves to be even better because we know that we can be and the intrinsic motivation is really the most important thing. You don't do it just simply for the accolades. Like there's so much more to being a champion and to strive for excellence every day. It's about the journey and all the little moments along the way. It's putting in the work at the rank that we really truly enjoy feeling that improvement on a day-to-day basis and that's really what has kept us around for such a long time in our sport are just our passion for it. The love of learning, the creativity around every corner, the freedom that the sport gives you to be creative and to make something beautiful that hopefully resonates with the audience is really the most beautiful thing about ice dance and figure skating. So we are so proud to be a part of this sport and proud to show it in all its glory and hopefully inspire other young skaters or just people around the world to watch skating and get involved and know that these young athletes are putting their hearts and their souls into their passion for the world to enjoy. I absolutely love it. Well, I think you are definitely inspiring so many people and for you Evan, what has this latest season been like? It's been amazing to continue skating at this age. I'm not young certainly and we've enjoyed a lot of longevity in our career which we're very, very grateful for and I think just the opportunity to continue to learn and grow like Madison said and to continue to share this work that we have together because we're a couple on and off the ice and I feel like it's very unique that we have worked together from such a young age from even before we were off ice partners and to have this shared outlet of creativity and of pursuit of our passion. It's very special so we're very grateful. Also, I'd like to mention the support that we've received from US figure skating and from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee has been enormous since the team event in Beijing. They've been right by our sides the entire time. They have been pushing for action and our case which we're very grateful for and there has been a campaign launched by US figure skating called more than medals, which is trying to draw more attention to the case and it is about integrity. It is about the Olympic movement. It is about what's going on with the team medal. So when the team event medal ceremony was canceled, we didn't get our medals but we did get our medal boxes. So we left Beijing with empty boxes. They're all currently all nine boxes from Team USA are on display at the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum right now. It's a display that I haven't seen in person but we have seen photographs of I think it's incredibly powerful. I think that the empty medal boxes are very symbolic for the broken promise that unfortunately our team has been a part of where all clean athletes who had our Olympic dreams come true or won Olympic medal but did not receive that Olympic medal unfortunately. So if you're in Colorado Springs and you have a chance to stop by the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, we hope you do. You can take a look at all of our empty medal boxes and some photos and some history and it's an incredible museum which we visited in February and it's amazing. So very grateful to us figure skating into the US OPC for the support that they've given us. Absolutely and listeners definitely check out this exhibit and I think it is so powerful to see those empty medal boxes but like we said you haven't let this whole do back. You can tell that you're both very driven, very motivated and you haven't stopped setting goals for yourself. So looking towards the future Madison and Evan what are some of your future goals going forward? We are currently touring with stars on Nice. We've been on the road actually for two months. We've done shows in Japan, Canada and the US and this time a year has been really just a celebration for us after winning the world title. Getting to skate in the shows is much more relaxed than in the competitions. No judges. Just audiences around the world who loved skating and we're able to share our love for skating with them. So we've been on this long tour. We're headed back home in a few weeks and we're going to debrief and figure out what those goals look like in the future. We're not quite sure yet but we do have some incredible opportunities with speaking engagements like at the partnership for clean competition when we were able to give the keynote there. It was extremely humbling and we were very grateful to meet so many of the leaders in the anti-doping movement and today coming on the podcast is a great honor. We thank you so much for having us and we're looking forward to just continuing this pursuit of clean sport, advocation for clean sport and we'll see whether or not we'll be on competitive ice again the next year. Yeah we'll definitely let you know what those goals are and when we do set them I'm sure there will be just as lofty as they always are but yeah we have to see it's been a long journey getting to this point and we're very grateful for all of the opportunities that we've had and that have come along with our many decades of competing. So what the sport has given us has been absolutely just life-changing and who we are as people we've been shaped by the community that is figure skating the wonderful people that surround us as our coaches, our teammates, our federation the friends we've made in the sport over the years it's really a skating family and even without all the medals and the accolades that sport brings I think it's still a very rewarding and fulfilling experience and one that I wouldn't trade for anything. That is wonderful and well you're both keeping us on the edges of our seats here in terms of your future but we will wait for more information soon and Evan you of course mentioned the partnership for clean competitions PCC's conference in April that you were both able to attend you were amazing keynote speaker so we appreciate you joining us in New York City for the meeting but what was the experience like for you kind of getting up on stage sharing your story with this particular audience and then hearing from scientists and getting to meet these other anti-doping experts at the meeting. It was an incredible honor to be able to speak in front of so many crucial people who are really involved in this movement of anti-doping and who take it seriously it's their job it's every day for them and we couldn't be more grateful to share our story and just to see how it resonates with people. It means a lot to us to be able to have that platform to share this story and hopefully inspire the work to be done and we know that they're doing their absolute best. But I think it is helpful to listen to something personal. Like you often read about things, but to hear it straight from someone is maybe more impactful. And so we would be happy to share our story and keep spreading the joy that's getting as brought as but also the flaws that continue to conflict our sport. So we definitely wanted to be an ongoing conversation and we're happy to continue that conversation with anyone who wants to have it. - Absolutely. And Evan, is there anything you'd like to add? - Being at the conference was very humbling. I think we were nervous because we don't have a lot of experience with public speaking, but I think it was good for us that we didn't know exactly everyone who was in the room until after we were done. So after we were done, we had our coffee break and we were mangling and I went in the hallway and we met a lot of the faces that we had just seen and oh, you're a part of WADA. Oh, you're a big part of Major League Baseball. Oh, wow, all of these thought leaders. Everyone is a PhD or a lawyer or so many brilliant people in one room, so many influential people in one room and all with a common goal of anti-doping and integrity for sport being preserved. So it was incredibly humbling, a little nerve-wracking to be there. And then when we left, we were so grateful that we had the opportunity to network with these people and we exchanged business cards with a lot of people and have wanted to express our gratitude to them face-to-face in person for the work they're doing on behalf of many of the athletes who probably will never get a chance to say face-to-face. Thank you so much. So that was huge for us. We felt very grateful for the opportunity and also reassured after coming face-to-face with many of these people leaving that building, I thought, okay, the anti-doping movement is in good hands because there are some brilliant people who are working towards this common goal of eradicating doping from sport. Oh, absolutely. And I know that two of you are dedicated to being clean athletes. And I'd love to talk more about your experiences in the anti-doping system if we can. So what has it been like participating in usata's anti-doping programs over the years whether that's the education, the testing or the other pieces of it? There's definitely a responsibility as an elite athlete to compete clean. And with that, there are some things like providing whereabouts and being available for testing, doing a lot of e-learning year after year to understand what's going on a prohibited list, what is required of the clean athletes. And that's just part of the responsibility of representing your country at the highest level. I would say since I am older and I've been in the testing pool for many years, you saw that has done an amazing job of making it really easy on the athletes. The technology has improved greatly. And now providing updates for where we are going to be is so easy. It's the simplest setting a text message or an email. So it's really not burdensome at all. And I think the benefits of participating the pool are just so great knowing that you're doing things the right way, knowing that you're an example for the next generation. And that you're part of this group that is working towards this common goal of preserving the integrity and doing good by all the clean athletes in the world and all the clean athletes that are coming up. It's for the future clean athletes as well as the current clean athletes. Madison, anything you would like to add? Like Evan said, I mean, it's a great honor to be included in the you saw the pool, anti-doping movement. And it means that you've reached a level in your sport. And to continue to be in that pool, we've sustained that longevity in our career. So it's really an honor to be a part of this and to be one of the small pillars that upholds this movement. And we're happy to provide our whereabouts. We're happy to comply with all of the required fields of anti-doping because we know that this is just going to make our sport better and pave the way for athletes in the future. Absolutely. And I know we've touched on this throughout our conversation today, but maybe we'll end on this kind of last point year to really drive at home for listeners. So as athletes, why is it so important for both of you that countries and sport organizations have these strong anti-doping programs and continue to invest in anti-doping science through organizations like the PCC and others? It's incredibly important because it's hard as they work to create these new ways to find substances that are illegal or shouldn't be in athletes' systems when they're competing. There are going to be people working against that and working ways to go around the system, which is just the reality of life. So their work is just so crucial and so important to kind of stay ahead of that curve as much as they can and help just prevent as much of the doping as possible. It's just so integral to our sport and to the trust we have with our organizations, the trust we have amongst other athletes that we're all competing clean and we're all putting our best forward and that the playing field is fair. That's what it is. And if you show that you're not playing fair a year after year or time after time maybe you shouldn't be included anymore. If you've shown that you can't play fair and I think that's part of what this whole anti-doping movement really envelops is this fairness, this right of passage as an athlete to clean competition. Evan, is there anything you would like to add? Just the commitment to upholding a system that all of the athletes believe in is crucial. And I think we've seen that the system is flawed and the work that is being done by the anti-doping movement by many of the member federations who are contributing a lot of resources to the anti-doping movement. This is I think what can move this system to become more perfect. Like Maddie said, I think it is part of human nature that there always will be people or countries who are looking to gain an edge and will do so unfairly. So I think just being steadfast to this movement, drawing awareness to it, supporting the athlete who are clean, lifting up the voices of people who have been a big part of this and whose story they may be can inspire. Those are all very important things that are happening and we're happy to continue to be a voice in this movement. But I think it is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. It's necessary because the integrity of sport is at stake. Integrity of the Olympic movement is at stake. And thank you for what you're doing with the podcast with all the research that's being done. It is so important to continue to do the work because we never know when that moment will come and we always have to be prepared for what's next to stay ahead of the curve. So very, very grateful to you and to everyone at the conference who we met and for having us on today. We're just very grateful that our story has resonated with people and that we've been given the opportunity to share it. Yes, thank you so much, Marie. We really appreciate this opportunity and it's been such a pleasure talking to you today. Well, thank you so much. It's been wonderful to have you both with us. We appreciate your support and your engagement in the anti-doping movement. And these conversations, I think, like you said, are so important to be having with athletes. So if our listeners want to learn more about both of you and learn more about figure skating or eye-stancing in general, what are the best ways for them to do so? Well, we're both on Instagram. They can follow us there to see our latest adventures and what we're up to. And we also have a podcast called Unlaced with Chalkin Bates. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts. It's one of our little side passions that we really enjoy doing. So you can catch up with us there. Fantastic. Also, usfigurscating.org is a great place to learn more about figure skating. We have a wonderful program at US Figure Skating to get kids on the AIS and to get people involved in figure skating. And I started at such a young age at age four, I'm at age third, age five. But it's also never too late. I think one of the things we've loved about doing this tour with Stars and Ices, we're meeting a lot of skating fans from all over the country and all over the world. And we've met fans who said, I started skating after the pandemic as an adult just because I was bored and I wanted to get out of the house or maybe I saw it on TV and I've always wanted to try it. And I finally said, this is it. So I'd say it's never too late to start or it's never too early to start. Get out on the AIS and try figure skating. I love it. Well, listeners definitely give it figure skating a try. If you haven't, regardless of your experience level, regardless of your age, I love that message. And I think you're absolutely right. It is an accessible sport that can be fun for pretty much anybody. So we appreciate you sharing your story with us. And listeners, it's been wonderful to have you here with us as well. And if you haven't already, it would mean a lot to us. If you could rate our podcast and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. And listeners, please note that the anti-doping podcast features a wide variety of clean sport experts. And episodes may include statements and or viewpoints that do not necessarily reflect the views or values of the PCC. Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the anti-doping podcast.