It may not be surprising that romance rumours fly, considering the long hours competitive skaters spend at the rink and on the road, sharing the same goals and relying on one another for success. The fact that their hands are constantly touching bodies can’t hurt either.
“You’re going to spend long periods of times (together) with a high level of focus,” Leigh said. “It’d be a piece of cake for it to go to that next step.”
For ice dancers Mitchell Islam and Alexandra Paul, that next step came naturally.
“Two people on a skating team know one another so deeply and intimately that you're either sure you love them — or you're sure you don't,” Islam said in an email to the Star from Shanghai, where the partners are competing.
Islam and Paul began skating together in 2009, and they started dating two years later. Islam, 25, said he wasn’t prepared to deny his feelings for his partner just because they worked together.