Canada’s sprinters ensured the host workforce didn’t depart Calgary’s speedskating World Cup with no medal, whereas American star Jordan Stolz accomplished his hat trick on the Olympic Oval on Sunday.
Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin, Carolina Hiller of Prince George, B.C., and Beatrice Lamarche of Quebec Metropolis received gold within the girls’s workforce dash.
“Very satisfying,” mentioned Blondin, who was fourth within the girls’s mass begin lower than an hour earlier than the dash. “It was a troublesome weekend.
“I used to be celebrating fairly onerous after that one. I used to be fairly happy with our workforce and what we had been capable of do collectively.”
Stolz of West Bend, Wisc., captured males’s 500-metre gold to remain unbeaten this season within the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 metres.
The 20-year-old takes confidence from Calgary’s World Cup that got here after the vacation break into the subsequent one in his house state beginning Friday in Milwaukee.
“It form of takes away the strain,” Stolz mentioned. “Often, once you come again to racing after a break, there’s extra strain. Going into the second weekend is at all times a bit extra calm.
“I’m going to be fairly comfy in my house monitor. I’ll benefit from the crowd, and I believe the ice shall be fast, too.”
After setting monitor data within the 1,500 and 1,000 in Calgary, his time Sunday of 33.85 seconds was two-hundredths faster than Jenning De Boo of the Netherlands, who was additionally second to Stolz within the 1K.
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Blondin, Hiller and Lamarche salvaged the host workforce’s weekend as Canadians had been shut out of the medals in particular person races in Calgary for the primary time in 28 years of World Cup racing there.
Canada’s middle- and long-distance skaters coming off a high-altitude coaching camp in Utah lower than every week earlier didn’t return with full gasoline tanks.
Ottawa’s Isabelle Weidemann, a 2022 Olympic silver medallist, was fifth within the girls’s 5k and Graeme Fish of Moose Jaw, Sask., who was a world championship bronze medallist final yr, was fifth within the males’s 10k.
“Our legs had been simply not there this weekend,” Blondin mentioned. “The main focus is at all times the world championship, and we at all times attempt to remind ourselves of that, however certain, would have appreciated to hit the rostrum a pair extra instances this weekend, different than simply the one, however very satisfying to do it with the women.
“On the finish of the day, we’re aiming for worlds and all of the coaching that we do earlier to that’s aiming for worlds, so typically it impacts the World Cup races and the lead-up to it. I’m not too fearful at this level.”
The world championship is March 13-16 in Hamar, Norway.
Canada’s workforce received 10 medals, together with a pair of workforce dash gold, on the 2024 world championship in Calgary.
“We’re shut in a couple of occasions. It might probably flip round fairly fast,” mentioned Laurent Dubreuil of Levis, Que., who was fifth within the males’s 500. “It’s like a reminder to take pleasure in each single medal, as a result of they’re very, very onerous fought.”
The 2021 world champion within the 500 metres and silver medallist behind Stolz the previous two years felt rusty Sunday in his first go on the distance since November due to a groin damage.
Dubreuil, 32, was just below three-tenths of a second again of Stolz and fewer than a tenth off the rostrum.
“I nonetheless consider I can win,” the Canadian mentioned. “The final two years, I used to be second behind Jordan on the world championships.
“I hope I get to beat him a few instances (earlier than) the tip of my profession and what higher second than the world championship this yr or the Olympics subsequent yr.”
Whereas workforce pursuit is an Olympic occasion, workforce dash will not be.
Three skaters from every nation begin the three-lap dash and go face to face in opposition to three skaters from one other nation on the monitor. One skater drops out after every of the primary two laps leaving one middle-distance specialist striving for the end line.
Dubreuil, Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu and Anderson Johnson set a world document en path to world championship gold in 2024. Dubreuil, Johnson and Connor Howe of Canmore, Alta., had been fourth Sunday.
Femke Kok of the Netherlands was the ladies’s 500-metre winner. Timothy Loubineaud of France was first within the males’s mass begin and American Greta Myers prevailed within the girls’s occasion.
Blondin, the 2022 Olympic silver medallist within the mass begin, discovered herself chasing a breakaway pack alone late within the 16-lap race of cat-and-mouse techniques.
“There was a breakaway that occurred and nobody needed to work it,” she defined. “I form of simply tried to avoid wasting myself your entire race and hope that the pack would get it going earlier than we did, and it didn’t occur. I began to dash early and form of went solo.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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