Olympic dream put Ivanie Blondin back on speedskating track

Ivanie Blondin's elementary school projects reflected what she was determined to become.

"Ever since I was a little girl I would draw drawings of myself and it would always be me competing here, me competing there, wanting to be an Olympian," the Ottawa speedskater said.

"Every school project I did was on an Olympian of some sort, of an Olympic sport or event. I feel it was always in me."

I've always been a competitive person whether it be baking a cake or anything.- Ivanie Blondin

The feeling almost disappeared when Blondin quit the sport in 2010. It took an intervention from her club coach Mike Rivet to get her back on an Olympic track.

Blondin moved to Montreal at age 16 to train with the national short-track team, while keeping her toe in long-track racing.

She felt isolated taking high school classes by correspondence while training in an environment in which she felt lost.

"The four years that I lived in Montreal, I never felt I was part of the team. I never felt I was part of the family," Blondin recalled recently.

"I was mentally not OK. I developed an eating disorder. It was really hard for me, being young and being in a city that I didn't love."

Thoughts of packing it in

Blondin moved back to her parents' home in Ottawa and started looking at university geology courses.

She met with Rivet, who had coached her since the age of eight with the Gloucester Concordes, at a coffee shop in Orleans, Ont.

"We're probably there for a couple hours," Rivet said. "I'm sure people were looking at me and saying 'What the hell is that guy doing to her, making that poor girl cry.' She was upset. Her sport wasn't treating her well anymore. She was going to pack it in."

Rivet had contacts at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, where the national long-track team is based. He suggested a full switch to long track and moving west.

"I said 'Give it a chance.' It's not about politics. It's not about whether you're a Quebecer or an Ontario girl," Rivet said. "It's not whether you're liked or not. It's about the numbers on the board."

Blondin agreed and achieved her dream of becoming an Olympian in 2014, when she finished 14th in the 5,000 metres and helped the women's pursuit team to fifth in Sochi, Russia.

It's Blondin's short-track background, however, that makes her a medal threat in a new Olympic event in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The mass start, in which several skaters leave the start line at the same time and jockey and jostle for position over 16 laps, makes its Olympic debut in Pyeongchang.

Points are awarded for three intermediate sprints during the race and the final sprint to the finish.

Blondin has won world championship gold and silver and a World Cup title in the race, which has the cat-and-mouse passing and body contact of short track.

"There really aren't any rules unless you bodycheck someone and they fall," Blondin explained. "Pushing and pulling is accepted and is very much allowed.

"The final lap in the girls' race is really where it all happens. You have to save your legs for that last lap and make sure you're positioning yourself properly for that last lap."

'Forging on' 

Blondin, now 27, has made significant gains in other distances since Sochi and is ranked among the world's best in the 3,000 and 5,000 metres.

She won gold in the 3,000 at the final World Cup prior to the Winter Games. Blondin will race the women's 3,000 the day after the opening ceremonies, the 5,000 on Feb. 16 and the mass start on Feb. 24.

It's the head-to-head, elbows-up racing of the mass start where her hyper-competitiveness really kicks in.

"I've always been a competitive person whether it be baking a cake or anything," she said. "Now that there's the mass start, that's my event and I really, really enjoy that compete aspect in the race."

Rivet recalled Blondin's relentlessness when his club skaters were doing as many sit-ups as they could to the beat of a metronome.

"We're at 90, we're at 100 sit-ups and even our guys, who in their eyes were the most fit, they'd all quit by then and she was still forging on," he said.

Blondin is aware that winning medals creates expectations. The chance she took to re-ignite her Olympic dreams having paid off, it's given her the resilience to deal with those expectations.

"Obviously a medal would be really nice and not for myself, but for the country, for my coaches, my teammates and everyone," she said.

"Sometimes I do feel I have a lot of pressure on my shoulders. When I really break things down (I think) 'OK, this is what's important' it's really all about me.

"I have a tougher skin now. It doesn't really matter what other people think at this point. Over the years I've really learned that about myself."