Ted-Jan Bloemen had a pace that suggested a medal midway through his signature event.
Then he couldn’t keep up the pace.
For the second time in five days, the Canadian speed skater failed to make the podium — and failed to live up to high expectations — when he finished eighth in the men’s 10,000 meters on Friday at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Bloemen, the reigning Olympic distance champion, was on course for a bronze medal before collapsing.
He showed signs of fatigue and physical distress, and showed signs of frustration as he passed his trainer during the run, shaking his head.
“I was bothered by the flu for almost a month and missed four weeks of training. I think the 10,000m was just too long. I gave everything I had in reserve, but it wasn’t enough today,” analyzed Bloemen.
Five days earlier, the 35-year-old Albertan had also failed in the 5,000m, the distance at which he won silver four years ago in Pyeongchang. He finished that race 10th.
Swede Nils van der Poel triumphed with panache with a time of 12 minutes 30.74 seconds, shattering his own world record.
Graeme Fish, a 24-year-old skater from Moose Jaw, Sask., finished sixth in 12:58.80.
Bloemen completed the race in 13.01.39.
It’s a great result for Fish, who missed a month of training after contracting COVID-19 in December.
“Honestly, I’m probably where I was before I got him. I missed three or four weeks of training just to recover. Maybe I could have done better if I hadn’t had it. But, honestly, I’m just happy with what I did today. And that’s all I could ask for, he said. Maybe it affected my performance today, maybe not. More likely yes, it doesn’t really matter. »
In short track speed skating, Canadians Courtney Sarault and Alyson Charles were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the 1000 meter event.
Sherbrooke’s Kim Boutin, quadruple Olympic medalist, was eliminated in the preliminaries on Wednesday following a terrible fall.
The Canadian 5000m relay has also qualified for the A final which will be presented on February 16th.
In women’s hockey, Canada easily advanced to the semi-finals following a resounding 11-0 win over Sweden in the quarter-finals.
Brianne Jenner and Sarah Fillier both had hat tricks, while Marie-Philip Poulin had four assists.
“Our goal is not to score at least 10 goals in every game,” Fillier said. We are following our game plan and our strategy is to create scoring chances. We only managed to take advantage of a lot of those opportunities. »
Canada, which has now scored 44 goals in five games, will await the outcome of Saturday’s duels to find out its semi-final opponent.
Eternal rivals of the Canadians, the Americans also reached the semi-finals by virtue of a 4-1 victory over the Czech Republic.
Jones experiences a first
Earlier, at the Ice Cube, Canadian Jennifer Jones experienced a first: a defeat at the Olympic Games.
Jones lost 8-5 to Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa in women’s curling.
It was her first Olympic loss after enjoying a perfect run to win gold at Sochi 2014. She won her first match in Beijing 12-7 against South Korea.
“We fell behind early but we really fought until the end,” Jones said. So I’m proud of how we finished. We just have to be a bit more precise early in the game. »
Canada also lost in men’s curling, when Brad Gushue lost 5-3 to Switzerland’s Peter de Cruz.
It was the first loss for Gushue, who is now 2-1. Only Swede Niklas Edin (3-0) remains undefeated among the 10 teams in the tournament.
Gagnon did his best
Marie-Michèle Gagnon, from Lac-Etchemin, was unable to improve on her sixth position obtained at the last Super-G Worlds and she settled for 14th place.
Gagnon lost ground in the first three splits and she stopped the clock in 1:14.65. She finished 1.14 seconds behind the winner, Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami.
“I’m proud of the way I skied, even if it didn’t allow me to approach the podium as I would have liked. I cannot be disappointed. Yes, I would have preferred to have a better ranking, but my goal in coming here is to have a good performance and that’s what I did. »
Ontario’s Roni Remme took 24th place, 2.27 seconds off the benchmark time.
At Yanking National Sliding Centre, Ottawa’s Mirela Rahneva set a track record in the first run of the women’s skeleton, crossing the finish line in 1:02.03. A slower second run dropped her to ninth place.
Jane Channell of North Vancouver sits 17th after two runs.
In the men’s 15 km cross-country race, the three Canadians finished in the top 40.
Sherbrooke resident Olivier Léveillé finished 29th, almost three minutes behind Finnish gold medalist Livo Niskanen. British Columbian Remi Drolet was 33rd and Antoine Cyr of Gatineau was 37th.