Posted at 12:14 p.m.
(Beijing) Two days before winning the gold medal in the team pursuit, Ivanie Blondin was locked in her room and didn’t want to talk to anyone. She crashed at 3000 m (14and), then in the 1500 m (13and), and as she was aiming for a medal, she was drawn.
“I just wanted to go home,” she told us bluntly on Saturday, after winning her second medal, silver this time, in the “mass start”.
Hard to believe the radiant woman. Who came before us, all smiles, was in a ball in her room just a week ago.
“At that time, I feel like I’ve failed everything, and I have to retire. Cry a lot. »
– What do you do ?
— I talk to my husband, to friends… I switch off my brain by listening Emily in Parison Netflix…
Guess the brain reset worked. Gold in the team pursuit last week was something of a team triumph. But the money, on Saturday, it was she and she alone who went to get it.
Ivanie Blondin makes no secret of it: she has often frequented the dark recesses of the soul. I remember seeing her in PyeongChang, race after race, 6and5and4and… always so close, never returned, angry. Disappointment after disappointment, she showed up in the mixed zone with her face more and more closed, her eyes sad.
She sank into a long depression after these Games. Disgusted, or even scared, at the thought of simply returning to the speed ring to practice. This place which is however her second, if not her first home since she was an adult. She got back to it. And reached the highest level again.
At 31, these third Games would be the right ones…
And now the first races brought it even lower.
The coaches said she wouldn’t do the 5,000m, in order to rest for the pursuit. It was kinda true. But clearly, she was not in a favorable mental state.
How to change your state of mind so quickly between two races?
“I’m programmed like this, tough on myself, but ready for a fight…”
So unlike PyeongChang, this time she was able to reverse the spiral.
“Just talking with athletes from other sports, from other countries, you realize how lucky you are to be here. I was doing a FaceTime with my police officer brother in New Brunswick, who was going to make an arrest, let’s say that puts things in perspective.
“I have learned since 2018 that we can reverse the course of things, when things are going badly. I have so much gratitude. »
* * *
Anyway, she came out of darkness, or shades of blue, to go for gold with Isabelle Weidemann and Valérie Maltais, last week. And a week later, she therefore lined up much more serenely in what remains her favorite event: the “mass start”, present at the Games for only the second time.
This race of 16 skaters is often compared to the short track, since the athletes rub shoulders and there are falls. But it’s more like a bike race, with its quickly overtaken breakaways, this peloton which saves itself and waits for the moment to burst, these sudden movements of speed…
In the semi-finals, Blondin wanted to send the message: I’m here to win, ladies. Even though she was guaranteed to go through with sprint points, she went to take first place. Why expend so much energy? “I’m competitive… It was to prove myself a bit,” she said, as if happy to have made a bad move.
In the final, she managed her race well in the peloton while Valérie Maltais attempted a breakaway — first for the bonus points… then almost believing it.
And on the last lap, Blondin took the lead. Slightly hooked by the Chinese (“I have to watch the race again, too many things are happening during!”), she lost her rhythm a bit. “But I hadn’t put the turbo on yet! she said, laughing.
At the very end, one of the Queens of Games, Irene Schouten, came to her hair to take the gold. But yes, a Dutch woman, one of those who will tell you that the Olympic qualifications in the Netherlands are even more difficult than the Olympic competitions… It was her third gold medal, in addition to a bronze. Italian Francesca Lollobrigida came third.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Dutchman Irene Schouten (left) came over to beat Ivanie Blondin at the very end to take the gold from her
The following ?
“I’m going to pack my bags, go to Norway, go to the Netherlands, then we’ll see, but I think I’m not done with speed skating yet,” said the 31-year-old athlete. top of its form.
It was nice to see her in full light, and I said to myself, I didn’t see Emily in Parisbut to boost morale, there is also “Ivanie in Beijing”.
* * *
Note, sadly: the Japanese Nana Takagi, yet one of the favorites, lost her footing in the semi-final and fell, exactly in the same corner as in the final lost against Canada in pursuit.
Note, admiringly: Claudia Pechstein, who turns 50 on Tuesday, made the final and even finished ninth. This great champion who began her Olympic career in 1994 in Lillehammer beat a certain Victoria Stirnemann, 19, in Olympic qualification. In 1994 and also in Nagano, it was none other than Stirnemann’s mother that Pechstein beat to win gold in the 5000m…