Canada claims speed skating gold on home soil

While Canada did not reach the podium on either of the first two days of the ISU World Cup of Speed Skating, they came up big on Sunday in the women’s team sprint as the trio of Carolina Hiller, Béatrice Lamarche and Ivanie Blondin secured a gold medal on the final day of action in Calgary.

Canada finished with a time of 1:24.90, finishing before Poland and Kazakhstan to earn their first medal of the season for the reining World Champions in the distance, as well as the first medal for the trio who finished fourth in their only other skate together at the World Cup in Beijing earlier in the season.

On the men’s side, Canadian men fell just short of the podium in their team sprint, finishing fourth. The trio of Laurent Dubreuil, Anders Johnson and Connor Howe finished with a time of 1:17.75, just 0.17 seconds behind bronze.

Isabelle Weidemann finished fifth in the 5000m – 4.64 seconds off of the third-place time. While on the men’s side Graeme Fish also had a fifth place finish in the 10,000m, finishing 2.06 second outside of a podium position.

Recently recovered from injury and a virus, Dubreuil finished fifth in the 500m, with a time of 34.14 seconds. Blondin finished in fourth place in the women’s mass start.

The ISU World Cup continues next weekend in Milwaukee, before stops in the Netherlands and Poland in February.