Canada's Ivanie Blondin, left, Isabelle Weidemann, centre, and Valerie Maltais celebrate their victory on the podium following the women's team pursuit competition at the ISU World Cup speed skating event in Calgary, Alta., Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. Canada captured two medals on the second day of competition at the World Cup speedskating event in Poland on Saturday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
TOMASZÓW MAZOWIECKI, Poland – Canada captured two medals on the second day of competition at the World Cup speedskating event in Poland on Saturday.
The Canadians ended the day in style with the trio of Ivanie Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann and Valérie Maltais winning the gold medal in the team pursuit.
The three Canadians, Olympic champions in the same discipline at 2022 Beijing Games, took the lead on the third of the 12 laps of the event and were never caught.
They finished the race with a time of three minutes and 0.97 seconds. The Netherlands took silver in 3:01.74, while the United States claimed bronze in 3:04.01.
The other Canadian medal of the day went to Laurent Dubreuil, who won silver in the 500 metres with a time of 34.87 seconds. Dubreuil slipped between a pair of Japanese skaters – Wataru Morishige, who raced to gold in 34.78 seconds, and Yuma Murakami, who finished third in 35.03.
Dubreuil will try to add another medal on Sunday in the men’s 1,000. He won silver in that event at the Beijing Olympics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2023.
