Ivanie Blondin won two gold medals on Sunday during another successful day for Canada at the end of the Four Continents Long Track Speed Skating Championships.
Blondin triumphed in the mass start and took part in the pursuit victory. His compatriots were decorated with silver in the men’s pursuit. Quebecer Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu added third place in the men’s mass start.
Canada therefore added four medals, for a total of 12 charms during these Championships.
In the mass start, Blondin triumphed in a time of 8:42.56. She beat the American Giorgia Birkeland (8: 44.65) and the Japanese Kyoko Nitta (8: 47.19). Gélinas-Beaulieu (8: 16.46) was beaten by the South Korean Jae-Won Chung (8: 16.33) and the Japanese Shomu Sasaki (8: 16.43).
In pursuit, Blondin, Valérie Maltais and Isabelle Weidemann stopped the clock at 2:54.02. They beat the Japanese by 3.52 seconds and the Americans by 10.30 seconds.
On the men’s side, Gélinas-Beaulieu, Connor Howe and Hayden Mayeur (3: 36.84) were only four hundredths of a second behind the Americans.
In the 1000 m, Laurent Dubreuil (1: 07.86) signed the best Canadian result in fifth place. Yankun Zhao (1:08.12) and Vincent De Haître (1:08.27) took seventh and eighth positions.
Over the same distance for women, Maddison Pearman (1: 15.64), Alexa Scott (1: 16.35) and Alison Desmarais (1: 17.78) respectively took the 10e12e and 14e rungs.
On Saturday, Dubreuil (gold in the 500m), Maltais (gold in the 3000m), Weidemann (silver in the 3000m), Graeme Fish (silver in the 5000m) and Ted-Jan Bloemen (bronze in the 5000m) all finished on the podium.
The day before, the Canadians had won gold in the men’s team sprint and bronze in the same event for the women. Howe, for his part, won the 1500 m.
The skaters will stay in Salt Lake City for a World Cup stop next weekend. They will then travel to Quebec, where the World Cup will stop for the first time in 32 years.