The power of friendship: Behind Olympian Madeline Schizas’ McMaster journey

“Crossing the stage this week, Madeline Schizas will be fulfilling her New Year’s resolution: to graduate with her friends. Bear in mind, this is the same Madeline Schizas who, earlier this year, fulfilled a dream few of us could imagine, competing at the Olympic Games — for the second time. Understandably, it wasn’t always easy to balance those two dreams, but it was those friends that pushed her through her hardest moments. “The friends I’ve had in university, I truly believe I’ll be friends with my roommates for the rest of my life,” said Schizas, who graduates this week with a BA Honours Environment & Society. “I wanted to graduate at the same time as all of them.” Madeline Schizas, second from left, with her university roommates, who have supported her through challenging times. Their friendship, formed when they moved into a student house together, was on full display this year, when Shayla McKeown and Jenna Coulter used their grad trip money to fly out to Milan at the last minute to support her at the Olympics. Schizas’ time competing at the Milano Cortina Olympics came to an end earlier than expected when she narrowly missed out on qualifying for the free skate. “It was a disappointing couple of days,” said Schizas. But, right on cue, there were her McMaster friends. “These guys showed up and it really just pulled me through it,” she said. “They don’t care how I do in skating. They’re just happy to hang out with me.” The trio spent the rest of their trip together, soaking up the atmosphere, watching hockey and eating great food. And it was her friends who got her to post on social media about asking her prof for an extension — which quickly became an Olympic viral moment . “Quite honestly, it was my roommates who were really pushing it,” Schizas said. “They said, ‘This is your chance!’” View this post on Instagram It’s no surprise, then, that Schizas is so keen to graduate at the same time as the friends who have been with her through thick and thin. But, of course, there was a catch: having to juggle the two demands of elite skating and academia. To train and compete at the highest level of skating, Schizas sacrificed her course load here and there. Tracing her route to graduation, she realized that she’d need to take a full five-course load while competing at the world championships that would qualify her for the Olympics. From left: Emma Wren, Annika Stratton, Madeline Schizas, Jenna Coulter and Shayla McKeown at the nationals in January. “There’s just nothing worse than waking up at six in the morning when it’s freezing cold outside, you’ve got to get out of bed, scrape off your car in the dark, go to the rink,” she said. “I squished all my classes into one day. I’d go to school for three hours in the morning, practice for three hours in the middle, go back for another three hours of class — and sometimes I’d write a midterm at the end of it.” It was brutal. No prizes for guessing who helped her get through it. “I had a lot of sitting on our couch and just being like, ‘I hate this. This is terrible. I don’t want to do this’,” she said. “But my friends were just like ‘Come on. You’re going to be okay. You can do it.’ ” “That’s what powered me through this — my friends.” Schizas’ McMaster career has been an eventful one. But through late-night study sessions and moments of Olympic heartbreak, she says there’s one constant thread that carried her through it all — a thread that’s shared by students across campus. “The power of friendship.” The post The power of friendship: Behind Olympian Madeline Schizas’ McMaster journey appeared first on McMaster News .

Summary generated from the RSS feed of McMaster Daily News. All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on news.mcmaster.ca.