Marianne St-Gelais, Charles Hamelin win World Cup gold

Canada's top speed skating couple was golden in the men's and women's 1,000-metre events at a World Cup short-track competition on Saturday.

Olympic medallists Charles Hamelin and Marianne St-Gelais, who are engaged, won their respective finals at the Dresden, Germany, competition.

Hamelin won his final in one minute, 25.676 seconds, ahead of Russia's Semen Elistratov, who finished in 1:25.742. Hamelin also shared the podium with fellow Canadian Charle Cournoyer, who won bronze in 1:25.778.

"We saw a lot of speed in today's races," said Charles Hamelin, who has won all the races he has skated in so far this weekend.

"In the final, Charle Cournoyer and I skated in front for a good part of the race. [Semen] Elistratov was able to overtake to find himself in second place. I remembered what my coach Derrick Campell told me, which was to be aware of Elistratov, who likes to overtake inside at unexpected times towards the end of a race. So I waited for the right time and I placed myself in front of him, inside, and was able to go on to win the gold medal."

St-Gelais topped the women's podium ahead of China's Jiaying Tao and Hungary's Petra Jaszapati with a 1:30.717 performance. Her teammate Jamie McDonald finished fifth.

"I was quite lucky in the quarterfinals to get advanced in the following round. I made a mistake that was completely my fault," St-Gelais said.

"I took advantage of that opportunity to try and be better. I didn't want to commit the same mistakes and so I raced in a different way. The final may have seemed easy, but it was relatively fast. I had good legs and the right opponents to go get the win in that race."

Canada's men's 5,000m relay team of Hamelin, Cournoyer, Francois Hamelin and Samuel Girard qualified for Sunday's final.

The women's 3,000m team of St-Gelais, MacDonald, Valerie Maltais and Kasandra Bradette was disqualified in the semifinals.