Canada's Ivanie Blondin snags 5,000m bronze at Calgary speed skating World Cup
All-Quebec trio of Fiola, Dubreuil, Gélinas-Beaulieu adds bronze in men's team sprint
Canada's Ivanie Blondin captured bronze in the 5,000 metre at the speed skating World Cup in Calgary on Friday.
Blondin, skating in the final pair next to fellow Ottawa native Isabelle Weidemann, bided her time through the gruelling race before finding an extra gear in the final few laps to propel her from a projected sixth-place finish onto the podium.
Blondin's final time of six minutes 54.81 seconds was only shy of Dutch gold medallist Irene Schouten (6:48.06) and Norwegian silver medallist Ragne Wiklund (6:52.86).
"I didn't think that I would ever step on a 5k podium again in my career because I feel like I'm almost veering more towards mid-distance lately," Blondin said.
WATCH | Blondin races to 5,000m bronze:
"Going into the race, I thought for sure [Weidemann] would beat me because she's been so strong in the past I don't know how many years in the 5k.
"My goal going in was to go with her and try and maintain the same lap times as consistently as possible at the beginning of the race and see where it gets me."
Weidemann, who won a medal of each colour at the Beijing Olympics including 5,000m silver, placed seventh at 7:00.66. She was edged out by Saguenay, Que., native Valérie Maltais, whose personal-best time of 7:00.59 slotted her in sixth.
"I've really struggled the last few weeks," said Weidemann, who tested negative for COVID-19 last month. "Ever since I got sick in the Netherlands, I just haven't been able to train as well, or compete as well obviously.
"It happens, you can have a bad race, but to do it two weekends in a row really sucks. We'll have to do a little bit of searching or some detective work."
Quebec trio collects team sprint bronze
The Canadian trio of Christopher Fiola, Laurent Dubreuil and Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu, all hailing from Quebec, skated to bronze in the men's team sprint event, racing to a time of 1:19.40.
Poland's team of Marek Kania, Piotr Michalski and Damian Zurek grabbed gold with a time of 1:18.90, while the Dutch unit of Merijn Scheperkamp, Hein Otterspeer and Kjeld Nuis sped to silver at 1:18.93.
WATCH | Canadian trio claims team sprint bronze at speed skating World Cup:
"We don't practice it a lot," said Dubreuil, who will try for a second straight 500-metre win in Calgary on Saturday.
"I think Poland nailed their execution better than we did, but at the same time, it's also a work in progress."
Connor Howe, the top-ranked man in the 1,500m, was the top Canadian finisher in the event, placing ninth with a time of 1:44.13. Fellow Canadians Tyson Langelaar and Gélinas-Beaulieu slotted in at 15th and 16th, respectively.
Howe placed fifth in the distance at the Beijing Olympics last February.
Dutch skaters Nuis (1:42.59) and Thomas Krol (1:43.34) climbed the podium together by taking gold and bronze, with American Jordan Stolz sandwiched in between for silver (1:43.19).
In the women's 500m, Prince George, B.C., native Carolina Hiller posted a personal-best time of 37.85 seconds to place 14th.
Live coverage of the event continues on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
