A second gold medal for Ivanie Blondin, a second bronze medal for Laurent Dubreuil. Definitely, the Salt Lake City World Cup is a smile on Canadian long track speed skaters.
After winning the gold medal with the Canadian team in the team pursuit the day before, Blondin won in the women’s mass start on Sunday.
The Ottavienne crossed the finish line in 8:31.870, just ahead of Dutchwoman Marijke Groenewoud (8:31.880). Quebecer Valérie Maltais (8:33, 390 s) took the 13e rank.
She also won silver in the same event at Tomaszów Mazowiecki’s World Cup in Poland in November. It therefore leads the general classification of this distance after two editions.
All fire all flame on the ice
Quebecer Laurent Dubreuil continued his sparkling start to the season by picking up a second bronze medal in the 500m in Utah, in addition to setting a personal best.
PHOTO JEFFREY SWINGER, USA TODAY SPORTS ARCHIVES
Laurent Dubreuil
The Lévisien broke his own mark of 34.099s set on Friday in the first 500m event of this World Cup. On Sunday, he crossed the finish line in 34.053 s, just 5 hundredths of a second behind gold medalist Wataru Morishige of Japan (33.997 s). Russian Artem Arefyev (34, 003) walked away with the silver medal.
Dubreuil thus climbs on a sixth podium in six 500m finals this season.
The skater leads the general classification of the event with 312 points. His closest pursuer, the Japanese Tatsuya Shinhama, has accumulated 286 so far.
Other results
In the 1000m, Dubreuil went for the 8e position with a stopwatch of 1:07, 305 s, just behind his compatriot Connor Howe (1:07, 194 s). Vincent de Haître (1:08, 315 s) and Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu (1:08, 690 s) took the 17e and 18e ranks. The podium was dominated by the Dutch, as Thomas Krol (1:06, 448s) won gold, followed by Kjeld Nuis (+0.41s) and Hein Otterspeer (+0.51s).
In the women’s 1500m, Canadians Isabelle Weidemann (1:54, 026 s) and Valérie Maltais (1.55, 352 s) both recorded personal distance records. They nevertheless ranked respectively 15e and 20e, while Ivanie Blondin (1:53:096). The Japanese Miho Takagi (1 min 49, 990 s) took home the gold.
The Canadian men’s team pursuit team, consisting of Ted-Jan Bloemen, Jordan Belchos and Tyson Langelaar, clocked a time of 3:39:23 in the 5e rank of Sunday’s event. The Americans won with a time of 3 min 34.47 s.