12 Facts About Zach Donohue and Madison Hubbell

From Cosmopolitan

Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue were destined to be a powerful ice dancing team from the start. In their first season together, they took home the bronze medal at the 2012 U.S. National Championships, and they went on to do it three more times in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Understandably, they're hoping to bring their dominance to the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang (after serving as Team USA's alternates at the Sochi Games in 2014). Here's what you need to know about the pair - a couple on the ice and exes off, just FYI. Yes, that works fine for them!

1. Madison started skating at age five. “I would always watch skating on television,” she told Skate Today, and says she wanted to grow up to be Kristi Yamaguchi. “I especially loved watching pairs. Then I would practice moves on the floor.” She started ice dancing when she was eight and skated with her brother, Keiffer, until he decided to leave the sport in 2011.

2. But skating with her brother wasn't easy. “Being a tall, curvy, muscular girl, I had trouble not coming across as flirtatious or too sexual to skate with my brother,” she told Team USA. “Even when we were kids, I remember people being like, ‘Oh, the married couple of Hubbell and Hubbell,’ and it’s like ‘I’m 12. My brother is two years older than me.’ We always fought against it, but we couldn’t get past that.”

3. Zach started skating at 11 years old. He and Madison teamed up in 2011; their coaches at the time saw chemistry between them immediately, although Madison has said it was at first "a struggle" to get used to skating without her sibling.

4. Also they basically hated each other at first! “We had competed against each other, we were very opposite people and we literally loathed each other,” Zach reminisces. “I had to take her hand and she was like, ‘I don’t really want to skate with this dude.’”

5. They dated for two-and-a-half years, but broke up to achieve their goals. “To work harder and do all of these things right, we just realized that to date and be with each other 24-7 with our particular personalities was just explosive,” Hubbell said, “and we weren’t able to keep our focus where it needed to be. We had to ask ourselves what was more important, our on-ice partnership or our off-ice relationship? And we both very clearly said the on-ice partnership is No. 1.”

6. Both are now dating other skaters. Madison lives with Canadian skater Adrian Diaz in Montreal, as does Zach with Olivia Smart (because Olivia is Adrian's skating partner, SAY WHAT?! Cast them all in a reality show ASAP please?!). All four of them train together, according to a Reddit AMA Zach and Madison recently participated in: "I thought that square created between the four of us would be awkward...and so initially, I didn't want to go for it," Zach explained. "Our attraction to each other eventually won out, and we have been together now for a year and a half."

7. Madison has a cute dog, a Pomeranian Husky named Nova. She's a self-described superstar.

8. But Zach's dogs are giving Nova competition. Puggle brothers Jaxon and Duke are adorable.

9. Madison's mom Heather makes all her ice costumes. "It is very special, [and] I definitely feel a big connection to her support when I’m able to wear something she’s made,” Madison told WKRG News. “It’s nice to take a piece of her out there on the ice with me.”

10. Zach is a great singer. He also plays the bass, guitar, and drums.