Long season catches up to Ivanie Blondin at world allround championships
Canadian speed skater finishes competition in 12th; Donnelly 17th
Ivanie Blondin finished the ISU world allround speedskating championships in 12th place while fellow Canadian Ben Donnelly was 17th following the last races Sunday.
Blondin was fifth after the first day of competition but finished 12th in the 1,500-metre with a time of one minute 59.10 seconds, pushing her out of the top eight in the overall ranking and excluding her from the women's 5,000 race.
"Obviously, I'm disappointed", said Ivanie Blondin. "It wasn't the race that I wanted to pull out Sunday. At the same time, it has been an extremely long season and...it hasn't been the best season for travel. I think it's just catching up to me.
"It's still a better positioning than last year but I know I can do way better than that. By looking at my personal bests, I should have been able to be in the top five for sure. It's only motivation going to next season."
Ireen Wust of the Netherlands got back her World Champion title followed by Martina Sablikova, who has won the last two editions. Wust previously won the competition four years in a row. Miho Takagi from Japan finished third.
Donnelly sees positives
Donnelly from Oshawa, Ont., took the 17th spot in the 1,500 with a time of 1:48.52, which had him slide from 16th to 17th position in the overall ranking. Like Blondin, Donnelly didn't qualify for the last race of the competition, the men's 10,000.
"It wasn't the result I was looking for," said Donnelly, who was competing at his first allround championship. "I had an unlucky first backstretch running up on the Italian skater and I lost some speed.
"But overall, this weekend, I'm really happy with the result. Especially with my 13th place in the 5,000 which was my best executed 5,000 race ever. It was a great learning experience and doing all these races in a small amount of time will help me going into the Olympic year. It was a good experience and good training at the same time."
Sven Kramer of the Netherlands won the title for the ninth time in the past eleven editions. His teammates Patrick Roest and Jan Blokhuijsen took second and third, respectively.