Twenty years later | The Press

Canada’s first Games medal won on ‘world’s fastest ice’

(Beijing) An Olympic record that stands for 20 years, there are not that many. But what is much rarer, which never happens, in fact, is that the record holder still participates in the race where it will be beaten, 20 years later.

It happened on Saturday, the first day of the Beijing Games. Dutch Irene Schouten covered the fastest 3000 meters in the history of women’s speed skating (3 min 56.93 s).

And at the very bottom of the results sheet, in 20^and and last place, Claudia Pechstein saw it with a big smile. At 49, she got her ticket to her eighth Winter Olympics. This is a record jointly held by ski jumper Noriaki Kasai. And if we had not unfairly excluded from the German selection in 2010 (the Federation apologized and Pechstein was standard bearer this year), it would be his ninth.

She will be 50 in two weeks, she no longer has the speed of the good years, but she is still making the Olympic selection – she was only supposed to take part in the mass start, on the last day of the Games. The previous “old age” record for an Olympian, held by a female luge, was 48 years.

“I smiled when I arrived, I realized my dream and I’m super proud,” she said afterwards.

When I think I covered his performance in Salt Lake City in 2002… his fourth Games.

Another who is super proud is surely Mr. Wu Xiaonan, designer of the “Blue Ribbon”, the National Speed ​​Skating Oval, the new architectural gem of the Games – the only completely new building to be built for 2022.

You should know that all speed skating world records have been achieved at altitude, either in Salt Lake City or in Calgary. Beijing, which is practically at sea level, wanted to build an exceptionally fast ring. A new cooling technology, developed by Chinese engineers, and involving 120 km of carbon dioxide pipes, is supposed to give the perfect temperature and texture to the ice and make it ultra-fast. At the well-attended technical press conference last week, he told us without embarrassment that he was planning new world records… in all distances. It would be a tribute to Chinese technological genius as much as to the athletes.

It would also be the pride of Mark Messer, the Canadian head of the ice, who is recognized as one of the best makers of white surfaces in the world.

Mr. Wu praised it for a long time in front of the Chinese press, underlining in passing “the excellent cooperation with Canada” and the “progress that it has enabled us to accomplish”.

The Chinese, by the way, called in a lot of Canadian experts to prepare the facilities.

Results ?

First race, first world record…

Fast or slow, the last lap of the oval always hurts, in a 3000 meter race. But even though her legs were burning, Isabelle Weidemann knew they were burning for a medal.

“You get to that zone where you don’t think about anything,” the Ottawa speed skater said after winning bronze, Canada’s first medal of the Games, as you know.

She was “overwhelmed” with emotions at this “surreal” result. She thought of the insane hours of doggedness it had taken her to go from seventh place in PyeongChang in 2018 to that third place.

It was also the first individual medal in women’s speed skating since the Vancouver Games. And it won’t be the last.

In PyeongChang, the entire podium was Dutch. The Canadians have no intention of letting that happen.

Valérie Maltais finished 12^and and Ivanie Blondin, who had much better results over the distance, finished 14^and in what she called a “shitty” race. But he still has three more.