Canadian speedskater Ivanie Blondin embraces beefy race schedule – Calgary | 24CA News
Ivanie Blondin relishes a heavy workload.
The 32-year-old speedskater from Ottawa will compete in six races in three days by the point the World Cup concludes Sunday in Calgary.
Blondin was a 3rd of Canada’s ladies’s pursuit staff that received Olympic gold in February. She claimed particular person silver within the ladies’s mass begin and in addition raced the three,000 and 1,500 in Beijing.
In a sport the place skaters usually focus on sprints, center distance or endurance, an all-rounder is uncommon.
“It keeps me motivated,” Blondin stated. “I think I’ve proven I can do it.”
Blondin positioned fourth within the ladies’s 3,000 metres Friday on the Olympic Oval.
She’ll compete within the 1,500 earlier than becoming a member of Ottawa’s Isabelle Weidemann and Valerie Maltais of La Baie, Que., in staff pursuit Saturday.
READ MORE: Canadian speedskaters earn males’s staff pursuit silver in Calgary World Cup
“One of my goals this year is to get on the podium for the 1,500,” Blondin stated. “I know my speed right now is really high and so I think I need this weekend to utilize that and to try to execute.
“I’m hoping I can pull something out that’s going to be fast enough for the podium.”
On Sunday, Blondin races her signature mass begin comprised of each a semifinal and remaining, in addition to the 1,000 metres.
Proper warming down and diet, plus strolling her canine Brooke morning and night time, are how she manages a jam-packed race schedule bodily and mentally.
“I feel like I have a little less pressure on my shoulders now that I’ve come home with two medals at the Games,” Blondin stated. “I could also be nearing the tail finish of my profession. I don’t know. I’m taking it yr by yr at this level.
“I’m still performing decently well and just enjoying it.”
READ MORE: Canada’s Ivanie Blondin wins 2 gold medals at speedskating World Cup
The Canadian males’s pursuit staff completed second to earn the host nation’s lone medal Friday. Calgary’s oval is internet hosting back-to-back World Cups with one other three days of racing subsequent week.
Connor Howe of Canmore, Alta., Montreal’s Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu and Toronto’s Hayden Mayeur completed second simply over half a second behind the United States on Friday. Norway was third.
The Canadian trio collected the primary medal of the season within the occasion. Howe and long-distance specialists Jordan Belchos and Ted-Jan Bloemen had been fifth in Beijing.
“It gives us lots of encouragement,” Howe stated. “This year we’re trying out new things a bit, a new team with middle-distance guys to get to speed easier. If you can’t start fast enough, you can’t make up the time.
“It seems to be working. If we think that’s good we’ll work on that towards the next Olympics and be better contenders.”
Howe leads the World Cup season standings within the males’s 1,500 metres. After successful and ending second in his first two races of the season, he was sixth Friday.
The 22-year-old stated he misplaced velocity late within the race and in addition received hung up with Norway’s Peder Kongshaug altering lanes on the final lap.
“It was an all right race,” Howe stated. “It wasn’t way off. I can’t be too sad. I think I can turn it around for next week.”
Wesly Dijs of the Netherlands took the boys’s 1,500 metres forward of runner-up Zhongyan Ning of China and countryman Kjeld Nuis in third.
Norway’s Ragne Wiklund was first within the 3k with Dutchwomen Marijke Groenewoud and Antoinette Rijpma — de Jong second and third respectively forward of Blondin.
Reigning Olympic gold medallist Irene Schouten of the Netherlands and bronze medallist Weidemann each struggled to seventh and eleventh, respectively, within the remaining pairing.
South Korea’s Min-Sun Kim received the ladies’s 500 metres. Vanessa Herzog of Austria positioned second and Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands was third.
The ladies’s 1,500 and staff pursuit, and the boys’s 500 and 5,000 metres are Saturday, adopted by the boys’s and ladies’s 1,000 metres and mass begins Sunday.
Blondin shook off the “what now?” post-Olympic blues she felt after Beijing to search out new objective in coaching and racing.
She educated with the boys earlier in her profession and has returned to that group after concentrating for 4 years on ladies’s staff pursuit.
“I started training with the boys again which I think was a good change,” Blondin stated. “I communicate more like a guy. In the past, when I trained in that environment, the kind of edge that gave me, it’s more my mindset with the boys and I’ve really enjoyed working with them.”
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