5 Rings Interview with Madeline Schizas

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]So, Maddy, we are doing a uh five rings interview about the Olympics.

[00:00:06]And so, I want to ask you, what was your favorite part of the Olympics?

[00:00:11]I think my favorite part was probably that it wasn't like a COVID bubble, cuz my first games were a COVID bubble, and this was so different and so fun having an audience and being able to see your family and friends and have them there.

[00:00:24]What was your least favorite part or the hardest part?

[00:00:28]I mean, I could go with the obvious like competing like great me individual event, but I mean, that was like the hardest part for sure. That's the obvious one, though. I think just like the length of time you're there can be tough. Like, we were there a whole month, and like it just is a long time to be away from home.

[00:00:45]What surprised you? Or is there something that felt really different than you were expecting?

[00:00:51]Honestly, nothing. Nothing really surprised me. I've done an Olympics before, but also it's like a regular ISU Championship. I think people like can really hype it up in their heads to be different than it is. And in reality, it's just it's like a championship.

[00:01:05]Like, you and you kind of need to treat it like one.

[00:01:08]I've been asking people what advice they got going into the event that helped, but because it was your second Olympics, um I'm also curious if there's advice that you would give to someone who's going to an Olympics for the first time.

[00:01:20]I'm not sure Okay, what advice did I get?

[00:01:23]I think I got more advice before my first games.

[00:01:27]The one that like I always pass on to other people is that you should bring things to make your space feel more like home, cuz you're there a long time, and it can feel a bit like prison, cuz it's like not it's just like white walls, like no decorations, whatever. So, if that's like going to throw you off, you need to bring like a blanket or whatever.

[00:01:44]That Kristen's told me that before my first games.

[00:01:48]And I'm not really sure what else I would like people told me or that I They They always say like treat it like a championship. I think that's like the big one, but the kind of like off like the less common piece of advice was that was to bring stuff to make it feel like home.

[00:02:07]I could see that the people that were holding it a little bit more lightly and thinking of it as like, "Okay, this is a competition, but it's not like carrying all of the weight."

[00:02:17]Sometimes that that could help, yeah.

[00:02:18]Yeah.

[00:02:20]Were you able to go to see any other sports or interact with people from other sports? Yeah. I went to see women's hockey.

[00:02:28]I went to see the gold medal game. Um actually, with some of my friends from home, so that was really fun. And I tried to see long track, but I literally walked into the venue as it was ending.

[00:02:39]Like, the last person had just finished, cuz we gotten stuck in traffic on the bus.

[00:02:43]So, those are the two other sports I saw, but then I was able to kind of meet other Canadian athletes in our building.

[00:02:49]Um we shared a venue with short track, so I got to meet a lot of those athletes.

[00:02:52]Cool.

[00:02:53]Thank you so much, Maddy. We're wishing you good luck for the rest of your time at Worlds, and uh hope you have a great off season. Thank you.