By Hiro Yoshida

Less than three years after teaming up, Spain’s Olivia Smart and Tim Dieck find themselves on Olympic ice in Milan this month aiming for their country’s best ever result in ice dance.

Speaking just over a week out from their departure for Italy from their training base in Montreal, news had just broke that Smart would have the honour of being on the Spanish flag bearers in this Friday’s Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

“I found out on the Monday after the European Championships, but then I had the official call with the president of the Olympic Committee on the Tuesday,” Smart said. “I had an idea because I was told in December that I was one of the candidates to be the flag bearer in an interview with Eurosport Spain, so it wasn’t an official announcement. It was just something that I guess they’d heard from the media, and then I heard it more and more that I was one of the popular athletes to be chosen as the flag bearer.

“I was very shocked. It was an amazing surprise, but I’m very grateful and very honoured.”

Smart will only be the second figure skater to be a flag bearer for Spain in the Parade of Nations with the previous athlete Javier Fernandez back in 2014. She is both proud to have been chosen and relishing the opportunity to fly the Spanish flag in the San Siro Stadium.

“I received a voice message from Javi congratulating me on being a flag bearer,” Smart revealed. “Team Spain isn’t a very big team, but there’s some fantastic athletes and to even be considered among those top athletes to be the flag bearer is incredible. A lot of the athletes in our team are already Olympic medallists, and to know I got the role of being the flag bearer due to my Olympic diploma in 2022 with Adrian (Diaz) is huge. I’m so honoured. I’m really nervous. It’s going to be very different walking in the opening ceremony with this huge role. It’s not just walking in the opening ceremony, filming, enjoying. You have the biggest role. You have to show up and carry the flag for the rest of Team Spain. It’s a huge honour, and I am starting to practice soon. I need to start carrying a heavy pole just to see what it feels like. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

It will also be a novel experience for Dieck who was unable to march with Team Germany at the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony four years ago on account of having to isolate in the Olympic Village after his arrival.

“I didn’t go because I was a close contact for Covid,” he said. “Someone two rows behind me had Covid on the aeroplane and then for the week I was quarantined. I didn’t end up having Covid, but I could only see the opening ceremony from the TV in my apartment alone. It was really sad. The first thing you want to do is the competition, but it’s also the whole experience of the Olympic Games. I was super upset not being able to do it, but this time I will be behind Olivia and making sure she doesn’t lose the flag.”

“With Tim’s situation, it was really sad because the Opening Ceremony is such a huge part of the Olympic Games and the experience of becoming an Olympian for the first time,” Smart said. “To miss out on that is big, but Tim will get to do it at this Olympic Games where there’s no global pandemic and with me carrying the flag, so that’s even bigger. Walking in the opening ceremony four years ago was like a dream come true. It’s something that you try and picture and imagine, but until you live it, you can’t describe what it feels like walking out, hearing the music, seeing the Olympic rings ahead of you. It was incredible. Everybody has their phones out, of course, trying to remember the memories through a video and their phone, but I remember putting my phone down at one point and just skipping and enjoying the experience in the present moment.”

Having secured their spot at last year’s World Championships in Boston, the build-up to these Olympics has been very for Smart in particular compared to last time where she did not know whether she would be in Beijing with her then partner Adrian Diaz until mere weeks before the Games began. This season with Dieck the approach to the Games has been radically different.

“The whole season leading up to the Olympics four years ago we were under pressure,” Smart recalled. “Every single event mattered. We had a really strict protocol of events to qualify for the Games, and the last event was Europeans. We didn’t know we were officially going to the Olympics until two weeks before the Olympics, which is very tight, and it made the season a lot harder, a lot more difficult. There’s a lot more pressure, but at the same time, because there was a lot more pressure and it was more difficult, when we did officially make it to the Olympics and get the one Olympic spot for Team Spain, it made it 10 times more special in a way.

“I do feel like we have a very different mindset going into this Games because we’re not just going to the Olympics to become Olympians for the first time. We’re going to Olympics with bigger goals, to make more history for Spain. We’re going with experience and maturity. I don’t want to say less excitement, but it’s more focus driven this time around. It’s going to be very exciting because it’s going to be an actual, proper Olympic Games experience. It will feel like a first Olympics, which is very cool compared to Beijing and Covid. We’re going with the experience of being Olympians already. I now know what Adrian felt like four years ago going into his second Olympics versus me going into my first but it’ll be really special to be walking ahead of the rest of the Spanish team, the other figure skaters, the other ice dance team and the men’s single skater, watching them experience their first Olympics, watching them experience their first opening ceremony. Well, even watching Tim experience his first opening ceremony will be really special for me to just witness that.”

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind for the duo with their appearance at the European Championships in Sheffield, Smart’s hometown, as keenly anticipated as their participation in the Olympics. They arrived in Yorkshire with the goal of improving on their fifth place at 2025 Europeans. They took to the ice for their rhythm dance in the Utilita Arena to rousing applause, but unfortunately a stumble in the choreographic step sequence saw them on the back foot in tenth place going into the free dance. They rallied in the free to move up to seventh overall. Although trying to deal with the disappointment of how their competition started was a challenge, they believe that the experience they gained from dealing with those emotions will stand them in good stead for Milan and beyond.

“It was a very difficult period after the rhythm dance to the free dance,” Dieck said. “We had to sit down with our psychologist and together as a team. We were both obviously really upset, but it also made us grow as a team. This situation made us stronger and made us more connected.”

“I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason,” Smart continued. “As much as I really disliked that moment and that situation, I’m very grateful it happened because it’s just made us stronger as a team and our relationship and partnership. We have a lot of support. There’s a lot of people behind us saying that they agree the scores for the rhythm dance weren’t fair and everyone was very confused and unsure.

“With how close the world top 10 is in ice dance, everyone’s pushing to be up there and, if you put a foot wrong, you’re going to get penalised for it. On this day, we gave the judges and the technical panel the opportunity to put us down. We do know that we are a threat to some of the top teams. We can’t give those points away again in the future, but we’re only human and the ice is slippery. These things happen, but it’s not the final result at the end of a competition that matters the most always. It’s the experience. It’s what you go through to get to the top and to get to where we are as a team and, at this point in our career, we’re very happy for every experience that we get to experience, whether that’s positive or negative.”

Last season Smart and Dieck pushed the boundaries of the sport with their acclaimed “Dune” free that garnered them a small medal at the 2025 World Championships. When it came to deciding on a free for the Olympic season, they eventually chose to create a sequel.

“It was Romain (Haguenauer) who told us one day at practice that we needed to do “Dune Two”, Dieck recalled. “I remember from the first year choreographing “Dune One”, when Romain put us in the beginning pose and started unwinding from there, it was something I never had the opportunity to skate. It was something so special and different I felt from the first moment which I felt right away this year as well. We knew we had to elevate the programme obviously, because it’s the second part, and you always try to elevate the second part and make it better.

“The choreography process was the most exciting part because the choreography of “Dune One” was so memorable, not just for the crowd and the fans, but for us as well,” Smart continued. “The movements, the steps, everything was just in our body. It wasn’t even something we thought about anymore.

“I can still to this day say that I loved the process and I love the programme so much, but it is incredibly difficult. You’re not just working from a clean slate. You’re working from the expectation of “Dune One”, but you are also working from a clean slate because the judges judge it as if they’re seeing it for the first time. They don’t judge it based on what they saw last season.”

Smart and Dieck also changed costumes while maintaining continuity with their previous “Dune” programme.

“It’s very similar design to the “Dune One”, Smart said. “A little different in terms of the shaping and materials and the way it’s placed. I wanted to add that blue tone to it without it being a blue dress. I wanted to have the mix of the Dune colour palette in the costume.

“The only priority that I had with the costumes was even though we were changing the colours, I still wanted to make sure that when we step out on the ice before anyone can hear the music or see what we’re skating to, I want them to know we’re skating to “Dune”. We’re in the desert.”

Reflecting on how far they have come over the past three seasons, Smart and Dieck did not envisage they would be in the position they are today after the World Championships in 2024 where they placed last in the free.

“Coming from different skating schools, having experienced a lot of years with our former partners on an already high level, and then coming together is very challenging,” Dieck said. Our first season was exactly that – challenging. We had to put ourselves out there. We didn’t know really what to expect and we still showed up. From a 20th place at Worlds in Montreal to a small medal in Boston for the free dance was a very fast and high jump. With Olivia and me, skating together from the first day felt already very good and kind of natural. Of course, in a partnership, there’s so many different things you need to learn and just getting that feeling from one season to the other this much is truly remarkable. Experiencing that together with Olivia is such a once in a lifetime experience, and we are just going to continue to strive for our goals and keep pushing because we know that our partnership has so much more to give. There’s more to come.”

“It’s been a blessing to have made the climb that we have in only three seasons together,” Smart concurred. “We know how difficult that is in the ice dance world. I think we broke the mould and the routine of what ice dance used to be of having to serve your time in order to be at the top. Tim and I felt like we had served our times with our previous partners, but then starting from scratch with a new partner is daunting. It’s terrifying and you don’t know where you’re going to get placed. After the 20th place at Montreal Worlds, I think both of us were defeated. We were really disappointed because we knew it would be difficult, but we didn’t think it would be that difficult mentally. We had to shift our perspective and remind ourselves why we came back. We came back because we love the sport and we enjoy the feeling of what it is like to compete. I think shifting that perspective for both of us really changed the way we were skating, the way we were training. experiences from the past and putting them into the future.

“I had peaked with Adrian in 2022 and I gained this sort of confidence I’d never felt before. For him to then retire and for me to not be able to ride that wave of that feeling was really disappointing, but I feel like that patience and what that experience was has made it all worth it today, and it’s even better than what I could have imagined it being back then.”

British-born Smart and German-born Dieck skating for Spain on the international stage has been viewed as unconventional in some quarters. Given Smart’s association with the Spanish Ice Sports Federation through her previous partnership with Diaz, she felt it was a natural choice for her to remain under their banner bringing Dieck in as well.

“From my experience representing Spain with Adrian, it was only positive,” Smart said. “I wanted to continue that experience with them because I did feel like they truly welcomed me in as one of their own right away. They gave me opportunities and support that I’d never felt before and they did the same with Tim.

“I don’t think they had many expectations for us in the beginning. For them, just having another senior ice dance team for Spain is important and special on its own. We had two very strong senior ice dance teams for many years up until 2022 who then retired at the exact same time. To continue that legacy and history for the sport of Spanish ice dance is huge and now we have two ice dance teams going into the Olympic Games together for the first time ever. This is history for Spain. I made history for Spain at the last Olympic Games in 2022 to going into a second Olympics with Spain continuing to push that more and more is incredible.”

While they have enjoyed success at moving up the rankings in ice dance, mastering the language of their adopted country has proven more of a challenge given their training and competition schedules do not allow them to spend much time in Spain.

“We’re both practising our Spanish as much as we can in the time that we have between on and off ice training and travelling,” Smart said. “This season, especially, we’ve been really trying to push ourselves when it comes to interviews and media. But it’s not our first language. We’re both adults. It’s very hard to learn a language at this age, but we are really trying to show as much respect and gratitude as possible that we feel representing Spain and having the Spanish flag on our jackets and seeing the flag in the crowd. It’s our country.”

After the excitement of this Friday’s opening ceremony, Smart and Dieck will have just a few days before they take to the ice for their rhythm dance. They are hoping to perform as best as they can and see to which placement their marks bring them.

“We want to connect to each other completely and fully in both programmes,” Dieck said. “The top 15 in the world is very tight, so we all don’t know what’s going to happen which makes it even more special. We just want to show something truly special, create an emotion, create a story for the audience, and then we will see what the outcome is going to be.

“We’re a team that doesn’t try to focus on numbers and placements so much,” Smart said. “Of course, the goals are in the back of our mind, but every competition we go out at we want to create a moment. We want to create memories that we have done in the past at big events.

“As long as we’re proud and happy with the way we feel when we finish our routine as soon as that music ends and we’re bowing to the crowd, nobody can take that away from us and we hope it reflects in the scores and the placement at the Olympic Games.”