tom schad, usa today
·4 min read
BEIJING — On the surface, it might sound like a terrible idea: Working every day with your ex, one-on-one, after the end of a multi-year romance. Traveling around the world with them. Having to trust them. Putting your career, your dream, in their hands.
Yet that's exactly what U.S. ice dancers Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue have been doing for years.
"I guess I’ve never thought of Zach as my ex," Hubbell said after a practice earlier this week. "The partnership transformed, for sure. But I never was like, 'This is my ex-boyfriend Zach.' It was like, 'This is my partner on the ice. This is my confidant.' "
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Hubbell and Donohue have been skating together since 2011, and it was early in their partnership that they also started to see each other romantically. They dated for about 2 1/2 years before breaking up. But on the ice, they decided to stay together.
In the years since, the Montreal-based duo has won three national championships and three world championship medals together. They finished fourth at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang and will have a strong chance to medal this month in Beijing, in what they've said will be the final Olympic appearance before they retire.
"A lot of people are like, 'Oh it’s so amazing that you guys broke up and you still skated together.' But it wasn’t a choice for us," said Hubbell, 30. "The relationship didn’t work. We weren’t willing to make it work. But the love made it so we couldn’t say goodbye."
("Don’t ask her this question at the end of the event," Donohue interjected. "It’ll be done in sobs.")
For Hubbell and Donohue, the "exes skating together" storyline doesn't do justice to the strength and depth of the relationship they say they've built, both when they were dating and in the time thereafter. They've experienced all of the highest highs of their professional careers – and the lowest lows – in tandem. And they even moved out of the country together in 2015, heading to Canada to pursue a better training opportunity.
Donohue, 31, said he recently read a book that described people who reach a certain level of intimacy as having a "soul tie." And he thinks that's probably the best way to describe their relationship now.
"We have this innate back-of-the-mind care for each other and love for each other that has grown in some ways," he said. "The more romantic ways no longer exist, but it’s something that goes kind of beyond an everyday expression of emotion or even a cognizant feeling."
That doesn't mean it's been all roses, of course.
"After 11 years, I’ve probably been my worst self to Zach, out of anybody in my whole life," Hubbell said. "... And he still looks at me and he’s like, 'It’s fine and I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.' And that’s something where it bonds you for life."
Hubbell said it sometimes feels like just yesterday that their romantic relationship came to end, though it's now been nine years. "We were kids," she said of their time together. She has since started seeing Spanish ice dancer Adrian Diaz, and they announced their engagement in 2018. Donohue is dating Australian ice dancer Chantelle Kerry.
Though their romantic relationship didn't last, Hubbell and Donohue said it helped them grow as people and shaped their partnership on the ice in a pivotal way.
Hubbell believes that, even though the nature of their love has changed, their relationship is stronger than ever.
"To be able to just look at someone and say 'I love you,' in a way that I don’t love other people, is something powerful to admit," she said. "It’s helped us in the last couple years re-form a new bond and a new friendship. And it’s part of that calm I think that we’re feeling on the ice now with each other. We look at each other and there’s full trust and vulnerability and adoration."
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Madison Hubbell, Zachary Donohue still share strong tie after breakup
