By Hiro Yoshida

Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck have had a rollercoaster of a first year competing together for Spain, but they are now on track and ready for the climax of the season at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada.

In the spring of 2022, Smart and Dieck both found themselves at a loose end. Smart’s former partner Adrián Díaz had announced his retirement from skating, while Dieck had parted ways with Katharina Müller and was looking to compete with someone else.

“Olivia was the first woman I texted when I was looking for a partner because I knew her ex-partner Adrian had just retired,” Dieck said. “She wasn’t sure and even I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue skating, but I still texted her.”

“It was 50/50 from my side,” Smart said. “I played him about a bit unfortunately.”

Still unsure if she wanted to continue in competitive skating, Smart had signed a contract to appear as a professional skater on the British television programme Dancing On Ice. Shortly before she was to travel to the United Kingdom in preparation for the show, Dieck came to the Ice Academy of Montreal to try out with some other potential partners. Smart’s coaches Marie-France Dubreuil, Patrice Lauzon and Stephanie Hanlon then threw a curveball suggestion at Smart before her departure.

“They were a part of the conversation in the summer of should I have the try-out with Tim or should I not and we finally all agreed no in the summer because I was trying other things,” Smart recalled. “I was still dealing with the ending of my old partnership and they thought it was right for me to take my time and do other things for now. They gave me the opportunity to work with IAM a little bit and gain some experience in another role. But then when Tim came to the rink to have try-outs with other skaters, I guess they really liked his energy and him as a person, as a skater. Marie, Patch and Stephanie invited me over for dinner, which was very nice anyway, but after one or two glasses of wine, they did tell me that they thought I needed to have a try-out with Tim. I think they felt bad about the fact that I had a week prior just signed my contract for Dancing On Ice and Marie was very proud of me for doing this because it was a big step. I was leaving for seven months and she pushed me to do it because she loved her experience on Battle of the Blades.”

Smart wound up having an excellent experience on Dancing On Ice as she and celebrity partner Olympic medallist Nile Wilson won the series which concluded in March 2023. Just over a month later, Smart and Dieck began training in earnest for the rapidly approaching 2023/2024 season. Having skated with other partners for many years previously, melding their skating styles together has taken time and is something they are still striving to improve as a team.

“Our first proper training week, when we first started choreographing the programmes and trying skating skills and everything together was the end of April,” Smart said. “There’s so many things that go into an ice dance partnership, especially to show a real connection and storytelling and synchronicity.

“I think the hardest part is getting back into the discipline of it all – early nights, good diet again, back on the ice four hours a day, not having as much free time to see friends and family. Waking up early, having a routine again, going from having it for years to last year experiencing having all this time in the world that was the most difficult, but at the same time very rewarding. It’s exactly where I want it to be because when I didn’t have it, I missed it. I have to remind myself of that very often.”

“I think it’s about the challenge to bring our techniques together, as we both have, obviously, in the past had different coaches and different styles of skating,” Dieck said. “Bringing this together is a very interesting process because I haven’t had to do it for eight years and I have grown as a skater since then. It’s a fun process which is, of course, hard at times because we just do things differently.”

“When you’re under a little bit more stress, have a little bit more adrenaline, both of us deal very differently with that,” Smart said. “It’s an exciting process and something that’s fun, and that we can play with and adjust and work on. Different energies, both good. It’s just bringing them together, so it’s one confident ball of energy that we can use on the ice.”

There was also the not so small matter of deciding which country they were going to represent internationally. British-born Smart had been skating for Spain since 2016. Dieck had always competed for his native Germany. In the end, Dieck chose to request a release from the German federation to represent Spain.

“Stepping away from my home country for the first time was of course strange,” Dieck said. “But right from the moment when I had the first conversation with the Spanish Federation, they were so warm and nice and that’s what made the process so easy and I’m proud that I can represent Spain together with Olivia.”

“To move to Montreal to train with Adrian and represent Spain was a whole whirlwind,” Smart said. “Now I get the chance to represent Spain again and continue with my country, with Tim and the federation welcomed him with open arms. Spain is my home, it’s my family now and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

As neither Smart nor Dieck originally have connections with Spain, they are conscious of the effort necessary on their part to enmesh themselves into the fabric of Spanish skating. Smart, in particular, recognises that she needs to take more of a proactive role than before when Díaz took the lead in interacting with the federation and media. Both skaters are committed to improving their Spanish language skills.

“I knew my role would be a lot bigger coming into this new partnership with the Spanish flag on our backs,” Smart said. “Definitely this season I had to take more of a role in the organisation and communication with the federation. Adrián took care of the communication side of it because it was easier, but I’ve stepped into the organisation, communication, and teaching Tim how things work, how the funding is going to work, receipts, everything. It was like a new discipline I had to add on to training and competing, but I love it. The people in our federation are super supportive, and they know I’m learning still to this day. Being two people that are not born in Spain, out of respect for the country, my country, I would like to be able to converse with the people in our federation, and the people in the country. Going to the Olympics and being in a bus of Spanish people on the way to the opening ceremony and me being the only one that couldn’t speak Spanish was the moment where I thought this would be really fun if I could speak Spanish. In those moments, it will be really important and out of respect I want to put that work forward as well.”

With not a lot of time until their first competition together, Smart and Dieck needed to select their programmes. For the rhythm dance, they chose a medley of songs by Blondie. Their free dance is Elvis Presley themed.

“The idea of the music choice for the rhythm dance came from Marie-France,” Smart said. “She saw it as very fitting for me and my style and the way I looked and it was a good contrast because we already had the free dance. We had decided on Elvis and because that’s a male based role free dance Marie really liked the idea of having the rhythm dance a female based role. The Blondie rhythm dance is super fun, definitely in character of what I like and what I’m used to do. Kind of like Sandy from Grease, Tina Turner. It is a really fun programme for us to perform and kind of groove with as both of us are natural outgoing performers. The free dance is also very fun, upbeat, and quirky. The Elvis soundtrack programme fits Tim’s style.

“It started with her (Smart) watching the new Elvis movie and then we just brought it in,” Dieck said. “Marie France and Patch are big Elvis Presley fans and we just tried out the track, ‘Trouble’ with Sam (Chouinard), our dance coach. We just played around in the dance studio with it and we filmed it. Marie France liked it so much and then we decided. I started watching the movie and I fell in love with it. This programme is just pure enjoyment. Of course, it’s a very hard programme because it’s fast almost all the way through.”

“As a new team, it’s hard to find your niche, what your style is, what works,” Smart said. “We based it on what we know we have done in the past and works individually and bringing it together. We’re glad we can put out a free dance that has energy and is a crowd pleaser, amongst a lot of classical contemporary programmes that maybe one day we’ll try, but wasn’t in our field of skating for this season. It’s nice to know that when we go out, we can entertain the crowd or getting people to feel like they want to dance. Technically, this free dance is fast. It’s got a lot of hard elements. When you get out in front of a crowd, you’re nervous. The adrenaline hits. We’re doing hard elements, and any little mistake, any shake in our discipline can shoot you right back down.”

Smart and Dieck got their season underway in September 2023 at the Autumn Classic International in Montreal where they placed fourth. The following month they competed at Finlandia Trophy in Espoo, Finland also finishing fourth. They were assigned two Grand Prix events and ended up sixth at Skate America and eighth at Grand Prix de France. Some of the competitions went better than others, but Smart and Dieck realise this all part of gelling together as a new team.

“Especially what a new team like us needs is the connection,” Dieck said. “Other teams who skate for years together, when there’s a little mistake, they know right away how to catch it up. It’s all very new still for us. You also need to learn from those mistakes, and sometimes you learn more from those competitions than from the successful competitions. We keep going forward from there.”

In December 2023, they participated in their first ever Spanish National Championships as a team and comfortably won the title.

“Spanish Nationals was very nice for us to go to Spain for the first time as a team and compete and claim my Spanish national title back and Tim’s first,” Smart said. “We went there to do one job exactly and we did it. We didn’t have the skates we hoped for at Nationals, but it was still enough to put us on top of the podium and take that title into the rest of the season.”

However, there was an unexpected twist in store. Despite becoming Spanish champions and having the highest season best out of any Spanish ice dance team, the Spanish federation only named Smart and Dieck as substitutes for both the European and World Championships with Sofia Val and Asaf Kazimov, runners-up at Spanish Nationals, going instead. The decision baffled Smart and Dieck who were completely blindsided.

“We found this information out the day after Nationals and there was no word of the selection criteria or while we were in Spain after our Nationals victory,” Smart said. “The criteria were never shared with us so we had no idea of the selection criteria. Then we received an email with a statement saying the other Spanish team were going to both and we were first alternates. I didn’t think it was real at first and it was a little shocking. Unfortunately, that ended up causing quite a big stir in the federation and the skating world. Once the news was released to the media, the skating world also had a very strong opinion on their selection process and how it went down. It was nice to know we had back-up from the skating world as we knew from the whole season’s results we deserved to be at Europeans and Worlds. Honestly, our goal at Europeans and Worlds as a higher ranked team was to get top ten so we could get two spots for Spain for next season as that would then stop causing an uproar within the country and the federation.”

Due to the controversy surrounding the selection, the Spanish Federation partially reversed its decision. Val and Kazimov would go to Europeans and Smart and Dieck to Worlds.

“As they had announced both competitions to that one team, I understood even if we fought it, they couldn’t go back on their decision completely so they did take the fair route of them going to Europeans and us going to Worlds which of course we were not going to decline,” Smart said.

With Europeans now off the table, Smart and Dieck spent the early part of 2024 regrouping in preparation for the World Championships. Their final competition before Worlds was last month’s Challenge Cup in Tilburg, The Netherlands where they took a silver medal.

“We are happy to be competing at Montreal Worlds coming up, but we had goals at Europeans that unfortunately we had to miss out on,” Smart said. “We took the time to really rest and recover and start making some nice big tweaks to our programmes that could improve us for the last part of the season. We got to test that out at Challenge Cup just to get our competition feet underneath us again.”

With less than two weeks to go to Worlds, Smart and Dieck are eager to establish their position amongst the top ice dancers from around the globe when they converge on Montreal and also to savour everything that comes along with it in the build-up to the event.

“We just want to go out there and put ourselves in the mix with all the other teams,” Smart said. “We just want to go and make our place, stand our ground and put on a show of our two entertaining programmes and just take in the environment of being on a big world stage together as a team for the first time. These upcoming weeks at IAM are so fun and so intense and we’re enjoying that together and we’re very excited.”