Short track speed skating | Blazing start to the season for Canada

“It’s another dream weekend [pour nous]but it’s a nightmare for the other teams! “, exclaimed Jordan Pierre-Gilles as his gold medal won in the men’s relay hung around his neck.

The Canadian short track speed skating team had just concluded an almost perfect start to the season on Sunday. In two consecutive weekends at the Maurice-Richard Arena, where the first and second stages of the new World Circuit took place, she collected a remarkable total of 14 medals.

Canada ranks first in the team rankings with 3,106 points. This is 528 (!) points more than its closest pursuer, the Republic of Korea.

“We have to get back to work because we are going to have a target on our backs for the rest of the season! “, said Pierre-Gilles, a big smile on his face, after winning the men’s relay with his teammates for the second time in two weekends.

Individually, if there is one who will have a target on his back, it is undoubtedly William Dandjinou. In two weekends, the Montrealer won five individual medals, including four gold. He took first place at least once in each distance. On Sunday, after the final relay, he stretched out at center ice, clearly out of energy – and no doubt happy to finally see this long streak of racing come to an end.

In front of the media after the relay, the main person refused to talk about a perfect start to the season since “we can always do better”, both from an individual point of view and from a collective point of view, a- he argued. “It may have produced perfect results, but there is a process behind it that is not insignificant. We go back to training, to the drawing board, and we learn from our mistakes to make sure that defeats never happen. »

Even though he will now be the man to beat on the circuit, the big 6’3″ man also rejected out of hand the idea of ​​additional pressure on his shoulders.

According to his head coach, Marc Gagnon, “the training of the last three years is really starting to pay off a lot” in his case. Added to this is the “attitude” of the young 23-year-old skater, who “never stops until the race is over”.

“We see it in his actions, in his bodily expression, that he is always in action, always wanting to accelerate and outdistance others,” said Gagnon. He never lets up and that’s officially a strong point for him. »

A hat-trick in the relay

For the first time in their history, the representatives of the maple leaf triumphed in all three relays in the same weekend. For the men, Sunday’s final was eventful, and there were numerous overtakes. With less than 10 laps to complete, they grabbed first place and never left it.

“We found ourselves in several difficult situations and we managed to get through it while remaining calm,” explained Pierre-Gilles. The fact that we have confidence in our abilities gives us a little advantage over others. »

“We have such a versatile and powerful team,” noted Félix Roussel. […] It wasn’t a perfectly executed stint, but we have so much confidence in each other that we find a way to get in front of the others when we need to and accelerate at the right time. »

In the mixed relay, the Canadians beat the Dutch and the Japanese to capture the gold medal. This is only the second time, since the introduction of this event during the 2018-2019 season, that Canada has triumphed. The only other time was in… 2018-2019.

“It was one of our objectives to channel our efforts over this distance,” noted Kim Boutin. We knew that we were quite strong in the women’s and men’s relays and we didn’t understand why it didn’t work in the mixed relay. There, the more we do, the more we understand each other. »

Marc Gagnon was, obviously, happy with the effort of his four skaters in this event, especially in terms of team cohesion; something they worked on a lot over the summer.

“Yes, we won, but we won because we worked as a team. The plan for the final was not built by coaches; it was built by athletes, together. The four agreed. »

“More work” among women

Ten of Canada’s 14 medals over the two weekends were won in individual distances. And every one of them was taken down by men. This therefore means that, among the women, no skater left with an individual medal around their neck.

“I think that individually, we all have little things to work on so that we get to the top of our form in our individual races,” said Boutin.

According to the four-time Olympic medalist, it’s only a matter of time before she and her teammates get their hands on medals in the individual distances. Marc Gagnon has also noted significant progress among his skaters.

“I would be a liar to say that I am not happy because all the girls have progressed compared to previous years,” he said, adding that, “yes, we have more work to do” among women. than in men.

The entire Canadian team will now have the opportunity to take a little rest since the next stop on the World Tour will take place in Beijing, China, from December 6 to 8.