Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu has one heck of a backstory.

He was a teen prodigy. A top-ranked world junior speed skater in both long and short track, which is extremely rare. He simply loved skating- and he had his own, happy, idiosyncratic ways that served him well. He was the kind of kid who'd warm up on a unicycle, instead of the usual stationary bike.

But a new coaching regime stole all the joy from his sport, and his workouts strayed far into abusive territory. Physical injury from overtraining met mental breakdown in a perfect- but not perfectly understood- storm. At twenty he was broken and beaten and done with racing.

Four years away from the sport- travelling, tending bar, anything but skating- began to recharge the batteries, and then a coincidental meeting with another 'outsider' talent, Steve Robillard, lit the comeback fuse. Robillard encouraged Gélinas-Beaulieu to get into coaching, and that slowly rekindled his own love of the game.

As he tells Anastasia, it's all about the joy of skating again.

Gélinas-Beaulieu determines his own workout regime for the most part, and he revels in helping encourage young skaters, and he is already rubbing his hands in anticipation of the next winter Olympics -Milano Cortina 2026.