Béatrice Lamarche, Carolina Hiller and Ivanie Blondin completed the World Calgary Speeding World Cup in the most beautiful way on Sunday, flying over the Sprint by teams to climb the highest step of the podium.
Canada’s trio set off in the last pair of the session, against that of China. The two teams were shoulder to shoulder until mid-race, when Canada pressed the accelerator and then display the best intermediate time with a single turn to do.
An ultimate effort from the Ottavian Ivanie Blondin allowed Canadian women to keep this priority and spin to the coveted medal with a time of 1 min 24.9 s, a new Canadian brand. The representatives of Poland (+1,12 seconds) and those of Kazakhstan (+1.46 seconds) were respectively silver and bronze medalists.
“We really made a great race!” There is always a little stress to be well chosen at the start, but it went well. Subsequently, the exchanges were well and Ivanie finished the work, ”said Lamarche, who was at his second departure to this World Cup event.
“We are a young team and there are always things to improve, but it was very good,” she continued. It is a race where we must trust our instincts and when we manage to improve our departures, we will be even faster! ”
Barely a few minutes later, Laurent Dubreuil, Anders Johnson and Connor Howe jumped on the skating rink in the hope of imitating their teammates by male team sprint.
Confronted with the Americans in the very last departure of the day at the Olympic Ring of Calgary, the Canadians fought firm, but had to be satisfied with fourth place under a chrono of 1 min 17.75 s, just in Short of the Poles (1 minute 17.58 seconds) and the bronze medal.
The Dutch (1 minute 17.54 seconds) rose on the second step of the podium, while the Americans won the gold, world record in the key with a time of 1 min 16.98 s.
“They did a very good job!” Perhaps we expected the Dutchman to break our record, but the Americans have really executed well. On our side, we still made a great race, especially since it was the first time that we had sprint together. Our plan is to keep this team and build on this to go to aim for a medal at the Worlds, ”commented Dubreuil.
Details and cohesion make the difference
It was a second race in a few hours for Laurent Dubreuil, who had previously ranked fifth in the 500 m in 34.14 s.
The American Jordan Stolz (33.85 seconds) posted the fastest time of the session to win a 19thmedaille in a row all distances in the World Cup. The Dutchman Jenning de Boo (+0.02 seconds) completed second place, while the Polish Damian Zurek (+0.22 seconds) completed the podium.
-“What has harmed me were small errors of execution. It had been a little bit that I had not pushed thoroughly on a 500 m and the small details made the difference, said Dubreuil. It is not dramatic and it is not embarrassing at all! Even with what I consider a bad race, I’m not far from the podium, so it’s a good sign. “
For her part, Valérie Maltais took the eighth level of an atypical grouped departure, won by the American Greta Myers. The latter surprised everyone by detaching himself from the lot quickly and then took ahead of her rivals.
She knew how to maintain her priority until the very end to cross the finish line with almost 8 seconds ahead of the Chinese Jin Wenjing and the German Michelle Uhrig, silver and bronze medalists. Ivanie Blondin, for his part, finished fourth.
“It was a slightly frustrating race. There were escapes and the peloton did not patinize well together. Often, at the start grouped, it is a question of timing And today, the peloton has just not cooperated. We did not make good decisions to engage in the fight, ”analyzed Maltese after the test.
“Personally, I was not well placed to react quickly. When it happens, there is so much to manage that it is difficult to be able to recover. This is not the race we hoped, but we turn the page and we focus on the next one, “she added.
On the male side, David La Rue ranked 12ed from the group won by the French Timothy Loubineaud.
Note that several skaters from the beautiful province have patinated in class B on Sunday at the start of the day.
This is the case of Béatrice Lamarche and Rose Laliberté-Roy who ranked 6th and 10ed their group respectively. Quebecers Christopher Fiola, Antoine Roger and Cédrick Brunet have traveled the same distance among men, concluding 7th, 17th and 27th, in order.
The long -track speed skating world cup circuit is now transporting on the side of Wisconsin, more precisely in Milwaukee, where activities will resume next Friday.
