Alex and Maia Shibutani aren’t the typical ice dancing duo. They’re siblings, a rarity in the sport, but their familial bond makes their championship program shine. The “Shib Sibs” have been inseparable their entire lives on and off the ice since their parents traversed the country in an effort to give them the best possible training to help them realize their dream. With that dream came the reality that they had to focus on competition, and there was no time for a small, furry addition to their clan. With the long hours and constant traveling came sad reality — a dog wasn’t a possibility.
In recent years they’ve been able to settle down and realize their lifelong goal of owning a dog (two, actually) and now they’re a near-given to medal in PyeongChang at the Winter Olympics. Still, it comes back to the dogs. Through Milk-Bone, Alex and Maia are taking some of the spotlight off themselves and onto their dogs Lily and Po, and how the dogs of Olympians everywhere are able to support their champion owners.
Tell me the story of how Lily and Po came into your life.
Alex: So I guess it started off with me being born. I always wanted a dog before Maia was born even. And then Maia was born and I was really excited that I had a baby sister and we’ve always had a really good relationship. But then even still…
Maia: He’s all about dogs, even when we were kids.
Alex: Around Christmas time I was given dog stuffed animals in place of the real thing. Once we started skating our mom was driving us to the rink and spending time with us so much and Maia was being homeschooled, so we were taking it pretty seriously from a pretty young age and I think that’s one of the key reasons why we are where we are today. Because we found something that we really loved and we committed to it and we worked really hard at it but as a result and with our mom being with us at the rink all the time there was never room for a family puppy.
Maia: The schedule logistics were always really challenging and like Alex said: our career. We’ve been skating together for fourteen years and we are in Ann Arbor now and we’ve been here for the past ten years, but this is the second place we moved to for training. So I guess kind of fast forward to Lily and Po, it was once we were in Michigan for a few years that…
Alex: …we knew we were going to be here basically. We knew we weren’t moving anymore. We had found the training environment that we loved and we believed would take us to the level that we are at now, going into our second Olympic Games. And our grandma moved out to Ann Arbor to live with us and just a bunch of different things, but with Maia and I at the rink all the time we weren’t able to see our grandma as often and so we had to make the family decision that we were ready collectively for a dog and so we got Po first.
Po is a Maltese. He’s named after the character in Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black’s character. I thought he was really being cute, but also he was a bit, he’s a little chubby and so that’s Po. And then six months later Maia had the brilliant idea saying, “Oh well Po needs some, another dog to play with.” So that’s when Lily came into the picture and Lily is also a Maltese and she’s actually Po’s niece.
The whole team is family and dogs.
Alex: Yes, it’s been that way since day one. It’s only natural that I guess coincidentally Lily and Po are from the same family too and now they’re part of our family.
Maia: And for the past seven years like Alex said, they’ve been a part of our family and I guess even looking just to our skating, this is our eighth year competing at the senior level, which is the Olympic level of our sport and so to have had their support and to grow up with them during these times, which you know is sometimes tense…
Alex: During the most intense and grueling periods of our career.
Maia: But to still have their love and support at the same time has been really meaningful and special to us.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd_BQO_BvsZ/?hl=en&taken-by=shibsibs
Right, this campaign for Milk-Bone Dogs Inspire More, it shows how important animals are in our lives. Even when just the regular person coming home from a day at work, it’s so great to see that dog smiling at you. It’s just complete love. But now you’re taking this journey and no matter how big it gets, those dogs are always going to be there and they’re just going to love you for who you are. How does that feel, that separation between becoming possible Olympic stars and feeling grounded in knowing that Lily and Po are just waiting at home and just want to cuddle with you?
Alex: You said it so well. They’re unconditional love and when we come home every day, even if we leave the house for a brief second and then come back they greet us in the exact same way, which is really awesome. And you know we love spending time with them and hanging out on weekends because we skate Monday through Friday and we see them every day obviously. But on weekends that’s when we really get our quality time with them.
Maia: Quality time like Alex said. No matter what, whether your day is good or it’s challenging, or you’re exhausted, just being able to come home and have their cuddles and their smiles and their support. We’re really excited that Team USA has been partnering with Milk-Bone because like you said also, it’s not just athletes but everyone in general. Dogs can really inspire you to be your best and having their support I know has changed a lot for us.
Alex: And every day this year and really for the past seven, has been challenging. We really love what we do and we enjoy it but to be the best that you can be, and in our sport to be the best in the world, we’re constantly pushing ourselves and our hours are very long. After a long day, there’s nothing better than seeing them. And I’m not really worried about the hypothetical, becoming Olympic stars and forgetting our roots and Lily and Po keeping us grounded, but we do really appreciate their love and being able to spend time with them. We’ll watch movies with them…
Maia: Go for a walk.
Alex: Watch TV, and go for walks. And they obviously love Milk-Bones so they are the biggest fans of our partnership with Milk-Bone.
You’ve talked about how tough your preparation and growth has been, especially over the last seven years. Does it feel like every day has been leading to this potential medal run or are you just in the perfect storm of you being on top of your game as the Olympics begin?
Alex: Maia and I have been skating for 14 years together and we kind of flew through the early ranks at the beginning of our career. Typically, a young ice dance team or young skater will spend a couple of years developing at a lower rank and then gradually make their way up. We spent one year exactly in every single rank leading up until when we were competing Juniors.
And so we had a lot of early success and then in 2011 we won a world medal at our first World Championships. That hadn’t been done in 50 years. And so we’re no stranger to having high expectations for ourselves, but also high expectations being set for us.
But at the same time, there’s never been a given or set task for our career because even if you follow the sport peripherally you’ll notice that there aren’t any sibling ice dance teams. There won’t be any at the Games and ice dance as a discipline in figure skating, has deep roots in eastern Europe, Great Britain and only recently has North America emerged as sort of a stronghold for top ice dance teams.
So obviously our timing is good, but there’s never been a medal contender from an Asian country or a team of Asian descent that would be as successful as we are. I think when we medaled at our first major ISU Championship in 2011, that was the first time a team of Asian descent had come inside the top ten at an ISU championship and so we’ve been kind of breaking barriers and sort of charging through with a belief in ourselves. Not necessarily following any particular team or following sort of a this is how you do it, this is how you get to the top of your sport.
And so you mentioned, does it feel like every single day has been building to this, I would say “I don’t know.” Maia, what do you think? Like before 2014 it definitely felt that way.
Maia: Yeah, in 2014 for our first Olympics, that was the point where we’d been skating together for ten years. And so trying to make your first Olympic team that felt like such a huge milestone for us. And even going back to how we first started skating, I mean it started just with my love for the sport. I was four years old and I wanted to be at the Olympics. I couldn’t have expected that Alex would be there with me and that we’d be ice dancers and we would be a team and that I’d love what I was doing.
Alex: Maia thought that she was going to be a singles skater. I thought that I was going to be a power forward in the NBA.
Maia: I can’t say that it’s really been every day has felt like it’s been leading towards this, but especially following 2014 we left our first Olympic experience being extremely inspired and motivated. Of course we had our eyes set on this upcoming February and so since then I think as we’ve matured and really come into our own as a team over the past three years especially, I think it’s visible in the results but for us it’s come with our own confidence in how we’ve been developing our skills but then also who we are as performers. It feels like the training has really been coming together for this moment.
Alex: Every decision that we’ve made from a coaching perspective, we’ve taken charge of our career and we have a great head coach, Marina Zueva who’s a legend in our sport and has coached many teams and skaters to Olympic success. But knowing that we are different and knowing that we have our own path has given us the confidence to make decisions that are atypical to figure skating and I think it’s shown in the programs that we skate. They stand out.
We’re always trying to build exposure, gain exposure and connect to a new generation because in any art form, discipline, sport, it’s all about forward progress and moving things forward. I feel like going into the Olympic Games every year people have a certain set expectation of what they’re going to see because figure skating is something that your mom watched or you watched with your grandmother years ago…
Maia: It’s a sport with a lot of tradition.
Alex: And that’s great. But Maia and I not being sort of cut from that same tradition, and also just having broader interests outside of the sport have tried to integrate those things into what we’re doing and so not only are we in the best physical shape that we’ve ever been in, we completely credit walks with Lily and Po to that. But you know, we’re really prided for this moment of coming and you know in a few days we’re still improving. The experience we had in 2014 kind of informs us every Games is different, but we definitely are more aware of what to expect going into the second Games and we’re looking forward to really just showing what we can do.
So with that said, you say there’s maturity, confidence, but you’re also trying to push yourself forward. As an elite athlete and as a team, how does that affect your dynamic as brother and sister and is it a different kind of pressure that you’re feeling now compared to last time, the last Olympics?
Alex: Good question. I think that throughout our career, when we were thirteen and sixteen, going for the National Championships was a really big deal. That was our Olympics at the time. And so it’s all relative and it’s all based on perspective, and so you accumulate these experiences and you learn and we’ve been growing together and we’ve literally grown up together.
Maia: I think perspective is a really the key word. I mean I know that we’ve always had a great relationship since we were young. Alex has always been an amazing older brother. But really since we began skating together as a team, we’ve been equals and we’ve been working towards the same goal. And so, compared to 2014, I think since it was our first Olympics there was a lot of wonder and excitement and there was so much stimulus going on…
Alex: Realizing that we were a part of something that was way bigger than ourselves, way bigger than just sport. You know we’ve been to lots of figure skating competitions but the Olympics is about so much more than just sport, and the values and ideals that as an Olympian you try to embody. That impacted us significantly as we came out of that Olympic Games and I think it transformed the maturity level with which we approach our craft.
Maia: And so I think heading into this Games, obviously with our training and the results that we’ve had, we’re confident, we’re excited. But I also think that we’re very grateful for the journey that we’ve been on together. Being able to experience this as a family and to know that as we’re preparing for such a big moment on Olympic ice that I’ll be out there with not just my skating partner but then also family and someone that unconditionally supports and believes in me. That’s going to be very special for us.
Alex: And then even though they’re not on the ice with us, it’s our family. It’s all the coaches, it’s all the fans and the people that appreciate what we do and support us. Like Lily and Po, it’s that energy that you take with you to center ice at the Olympic Games where that can be a very daunting feeling standing in front of an arena full of people but then also the world, because it is the Olympics and everyone is watching. So Maia and I are just, we’ve developed a sense of being confident in our own skin and really, like Maia says, being grateful and appreciative for the opportunity to do what we love and share it with a lot of people.
So here’s a very serious question, probably the most serious question that you’re going to be asked through this whole experience. When you medal are you going to take the medals and let Lily and Po wear them?
Maia (zero hesitation): Of course.
Alex: I wouldn’t even be worried about them gnawing on it or ripping up the ribbon that the medal’s hanging on. I like that you’re thinking positive. We are too and we have every reason to be feeling really good about things going into the Games. Training has been going well. But the thing with Lily and Po is that, for example with Milk-Bone, they’re so psyched that we’re working with Milk-Bone. I don’t think they know we are but they just know there are more dog Milk-Bones readily available at all times. But they’re so well behaved that we could set the box of treats down on the ground and they’ll just sniff at it and wait for us to give it to them. They won’t knock it over. So an Olympic medal, I think that it would be in safe hands with Lily and Po.
