Canada earns four individual distance medals on home ice in Calgary; Mixed Relay team finishes fourth after unfortunate fall in finals.
CALGARY, ALBERTA – Victor Chartrand won Canada’s lone medal at the ISU World Junior Short Track Championships on Sunday, bringing home bronze in the 1000m at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.
Chartrand was in contention early in the 1000m final but lost quite a bit of speed after being bumped by Italy’s Lorenzo Previtali with two laps remaining as they chased down a breakaway pack ahead of them. The Laval native crossed the finish line in fourth place with a time of 1:26.147 but was propelled into bronze medal position after the Italian was penalized for his actions, a decision that resulted in a loud cheer from the hometown fans.
The race was won by Korea’s Rim Jongun (1:24.450), while Zhang Bohao of China was second (1:24.657). With the bronze medal, Chartrand becomes the first Canadian male to reach the podium in the 1000m distance since Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu captured silver in 2010.
“I feel very proud about this result. I am happy that I was able to execute my races well throughout the weekend. After finishing fourth after the infraction with the Italian, while you’re never sure how the officials will call it, I had a really good feeling I was going to win a medal in the distance. Winning is good for my confidence and I’m going to try to replicate these types of results in a few weeks to end my season.”Victor Chartrand
A little while later, the quartet of Qi Miao (Blainville, Que.), Victoria Jean-Baptiste (Laval, Que.), Mathieu Pelletier (Laval, Que.) and Gabriel Jones (Deux-Montagnes, Qué.) came close to bringing home a medal in the 2000m mixed relay, but an unfortunate fall early in the race put them out of podium contention, settling for a fourth-place result behind Korea, China and Kazakhstan. While they did not win a medal, the Canadians leave the Olympic Oval with a junior world record to their name thanks to their mark of 2:40.944 from Saturday’s semifinal.
Canada concludes the competition with four medals, two gold and two bronze, matching their medal haul from both 2023 and 2022. Four podiums across individual distances is an accomplishment achieved only a handful of times by a Canadian contingent, including 2023 in Dresden and 2010 in Taipei.
While the junior team is done competing, the international short track season comes to an end with the ISU World Short Track Championships in Beijing from March 14-16. Races will be live streamed on CBC Sports and Radio-Canada Sports digital platforms.
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Alain Brouillette
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