(Calgary) Gaétan Boucher came to Calgary with his friend Benoît Lamarche to attend the Long Track Speed Skating World Cup. At the last minute, Radio-Canada asked him to analyze the events that will be broadcast on the web, a role he will also occupy during the Beijing Olympics.
Boucher and Lamarche did not arrive empty-handed: they each had a pair of skates in their suitcase.
Thanks to their relations, they managed to get half an hour of ice cream on Thursday evening at the Olympic Oval, where they played their last Olympics together in 1988.
After a 23-year hiatus – he took part in the World Masters Championship in 1996 in Quebec City and in 1997 in Berlin – Boucher returned to speed skating in earnest last winter on the outer plains ring. ‘Abraham.
The construction of the Quebec Ice Center, inaugurated at the end of August, and the Masters World Championship it will host in 2023 have served as motivation for one of the greatest champions in Canadian Olympic history. Mathieu Turcotte designed skates for him and he left, on long and short track.
I got back to it more seriously since October in Quebec. I skated about fifteen times.
Gaétan Boucher, around the baggage carousel, Wednesday evening
And then ? “It’s hard in your! I’m not that fit. This summer is perhaps the one where I have been the least. In July, I was doing nothing. I was just playing golf. “
The 63-year-old bends down to imitate the skater’s position: “Technically, I skate well, but I had to adapt to the [lames] claps. I no longer have the stamina, which I have to redevelop. It hurts the legs, the movements are not so fast. “
Coordination and speed in sprints are his biggest challenges. He is aiming for nothing less than the cumulative title in Quebec in 2023 (probably the 500, 1500, 3000 and 5000m). He’s already doing his calculations.
“For that, I have to be able to skate at least around 40 seconds in the 500m. There, if I did one, I’d be 45, 46 seconds, if not slower. When I started at the start of the year, I had a hard time doing relaxed laps at 41, 42 seconds. There, I am able to do it in 36, 37. The strength returns. I’m going to have to train seriously, that’s for sure. “
Does anyone want to bet against him?