BEIJING, CHINA – Canada’s Valérie Maltais earned her first World Cup Speed Skating medal of the season on Sunday, bringing home silver in the women’s Mass Start to conclude an action-packed weekend of racing in Beijing.
Dutch skater Marijke Groenewoud repeated as Mass Start gold medalist for the second consecutive weekend, posting a time of 8:27.62 to earn the victory in a race where penalties helped determine the rest of the podium.
Canada’s Ivanie Blondin initially crossed the finish line in silver medal position with a time of 8:28.49 but was later disqualified from the race after officials deemed that body contact between her and Italian competitor Francesca Lollobrigida, who originally finished fourth, impacted another skater.
Fellow Canadian Maltais (La Baie, Que.) – who was well positioned throughout the race and in the thick of things during the final sprint – was the beneficiary of Blondin’s disqualification, which bumped her from third place to second place, securing the silver medal with a time of 8:28.97, ahead of China’s Binyu Yang (8:29.72).
“I’m really happy with today’s result. It was a nice way to finish off this trip and the first World Cups of the season. It was a race with a lot of action, and I feel that I conserved my energy very well to put myself in a good position for the final sprint.”Valérie Maltais
Maltais now sits third in the overall Mass Start rankings with 90 points, behind Dutch teammates Elisa Dul (91) and Marijke Groenewoud (120). The 34-year-old earned the overall title last season thanks to three podium finishes, six points ahead of teammate Blondin.
In other result on Sunday, Canada narrowly missed the podium in the first Team Sprint events of the World Cup season.
The women’s squad of Blondin, Carolina Hiller (Prince George, B.C.), Béatrice Lamarche (Quebec City, Que.), who captured gold at the Four Continents Championships two weekends ago, earned a fourth-place finish on Sunday. Their time of 1:27.53 placed them +1.18 seconds behind the Netherlands, Poland (+0.72) and the United States (+0.73).
Skating together for the very first time, the men’s trio of Anders Johnson (Burnaby, B.C.), Christopher Fiola (Montreal, Que.) and Yankun Zhao (Calgary, Alta.) also finished fourth (+1.07), behind the Netherlands (1:18.35), United States (+0.15) and China (+0.26).
The Canadian long track team concludes their three-week Asian trip with 18 medals, including 12 at the Four Continents Championships, four at the season opening World Cup in Nagano, and two at this weekend’s World Cup in Beijing.
The ISU World Cup Speed Skating circuit returns with the four final stops in the New Year, visiting Calgary (January 24-26) and Milwaukee (January 31-February 2), before closing out the season in Europe, with events in Tomaszów Mazowiecki (February 21-23) and Heerenveen (February 28-March 2).
Results
Women’s 500m
Caroline Hiller: 14th
Béatrice Lamarche: 19th (Division B)
Maddison Pearman: 25th (Division B)
Men’s 500m
Laurent Dubreuil: 20th
Christopher Fiola: 6th (Division B)
Anders Johnson: 10th (Division B)
Yankun Zhao: 14th (Division B)
Women’s Mass Start
Valérie Maltais: 2nd
Ivanie Blondin: DQ
Men’s Mass Start
Hayden Mayeur: 15th
David La Rue: 2nd (Division B)
Team Sprint
Women: 4th
Men: 4th
CONTACT
Alain Brouillette
Speed Skating Canada
communications@speedskating.ca
613-601-2630