Canada's Morrison, De Haitre grab speed skating medals

Canadians had another good day at the penultimate day of World Cup speed skating competition with Denny Morrison winning gold and Vincent De Haitre taking bronze in Erfurt, Germany.

Morrison, the double 2014 Olympic medallist from Fort St. John, BC, won the 1000 metre race by .35 seconds over Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands. De Haitre, from Calgary was another .05 back for the bronze.

It was Morrison's 8th career World cup in the 1,000.

“I had a solid first 50 metres in my race today, which got me off to a good start,” said Morrison. “In the first turn, however, I had a weird step onto my left skate and I skidded a bit, and for a little while I wondered if I had lost a lot of speed. I continued skating and ended up surprised and happy with my opening split, as well as a fast first lap. So I forgot about it and finished as hard as I could.”

De Haître, for his part, collected his first career World Cup medal, after finishing fourth in that distance in the first World Cup stage held this season, in Obihiro, Japan. This is his first season on the World Cup circuit.

“I was a little bit hesitant at the start, but I was able to concentrate after that and I simply tried to take my time and stay relaxed,” said de Haître. “I'm enormously happy with winning my first World Cup medal, especially after coming so close at my very first World Cup in Japan.”

“I couldn't be happier to stand on the podium with my teammate Vincent De Haître. He's the first teammate I've stood on a World Cup podium with since Jeremy Wotherspoon!”, added Morrison, who shared the same podium than the 2008 Olympic silver medalist in the 500m event twice during World Cups in the 2007-2008 season in the 1000m event.

Laurent Dubreuil of Levis, Que. just missed the podium in the 500 metre race, edged by .01 by Gerben Jorritsma of the Netherlands. Russia's Pavel Kuliznikov won the gold in 34.71 seconds, nearly a quarter of a second ahead of Michel Mulder of the Netherlands.

No Canadian women were entered on Saturday. However, Ivanie Blondin is scheduled for two races Sunday. She'll race the 3,000 metre event as well as the mass start, a competition she's dominated in 2014-15.

Blondin, from Ottawa, has two gold, two silver and a bronze in the five mass start races this year. Yet she's only 10 points in front of Irene Schouten of the Netherlands so Sunday's race will decide which skater takes home the title.