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A pair of world championships featuring major Olympic sports wrapped up over the long weekend. One of them, in Calgary, could hardly have gone better for Canada. The other, in Doha, produced mixed results. Here’s a recap of both meets:
Speed skating: Canada broke its medals record
With Calgary hosting the World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships for the first time in more than a quarter century, Canadian long-trackers parlayed their home-ice advantage into 10 medals (2 gold, 6 silver, 2 bronze). That broke the national record of nine (achieved most recently in 2020) and put Canada just three medals behind the powerhouse Dutch team, which topped the total medal standings outright for the 11th consecutive time.
Both of Canada’s gold medals came last Thursday in the men’s and women’s team sprint events. Each squad successfully defended its title from last year’s worlds in the Netherlands, and the men broke the world record. Isabelle Weidemann added a silver in Thursday’s individual women’s 3,000 metres.
Canada continued its team-event success on Friday with a silver in the women’s team pursuit and a bronze in the men’s. The women’s result was something of a disappointment as the trio of Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais were the reigning world and Olympic champions. Laurent Dubreuil, who was part of the men’s team sprint victory on Thursday, added an individual silver in the men’s 500m.
Blondin went on to collect a solo silver of her own in Saturday’s women’s mass start. The 33-year-old’s seventh career world-championships medal in this distance alone gave her three medals in as many days, following her gold in the women’s team sprint and silver in the team pursuit. On the men’s side, Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu produced a near carbon copy of Blondin’s results, taking silver in the mass start on Saturday after helping Canada to its gold in the team sprint and bronze in the team pursuit.
With Canada sitting at eight medals heading into the final day of races, Ted-Jan Bloemen and Graeme Fish earned silver and bronze, respectively, in the men’s 10,000m on Sunday to deliver the record.
A handful of Canadians are expected to compete in the final major event of the long track season: the World Sprint and Allround Championships next month in Germany. Skaters there will accumulate points across multiple distances to determine the medallists.
Aquatics: Canada achieved some goals at the worlds no one asked for
Normally, the World Aquatics Championships leading into an Olympic Games are cause for extra excitement. It’s the final chance for top contenders to reveal themselves before they step into the brighter spotlight of the Olympics. But the real dress rehearsal for Paris happened last summer in Japan — where, for instance, Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh won two more world titles and cemented her status as an Olympic star in the making.
These worlds, in Doha, had no business taking place so close to the Summer Games. But a desire to meet contractual obligations following a string of pandemic-related cancellations made them happen just five months from Paris.
McIntosh and most of the world’s best swimmers stayed home — sapping much of the appeal from the worlds’ glamour event but opening the door for less-accomplished athletes to reach the podium. Finlay Knox won Canada’s only swimming gold (in the men’s 200m medley) while Sydney Pickrem and Ingrid Wilm grabbed two individual medals apiece and contributed to a bronze in the women’s 4x100m medley relay on Sunday that gave Canada its seventh and final swimming medal of the meet.
Competition was more robust in the other sports — including artistic swimming, where Jacqueline Simoneau’s gold in the women’s solo free event gave Canada its first world title since 1991 in the sport formerly known as synchronized swimming. Simoneau added a silver in the solo technical and helped clinch Olympic spots for her country in the duet and team events (there’s no solo competition at the Olympics).
Canada’s only other medals in Doha also came in a non-Olympic event — women’s high diving, where Molly Carlson took silver and Jessica Macaulay bronze. No Canadians made the podium in conventional diving, though some additional Olympic entries were secured.
The Canadian women’s water polo team accomplished its mission of qualifying for the Olympics, but only by default. After losing the seventh-place game to Italy with the final Olympic berth on the line, Canada learned that it would be going to Paris anyway after South Africa declined its entry.
Canadian open-water swimmer Emma Finlin also qualified for the Olympics unexpectedly. After finishing 24th in the women’s 10km event and missing an automatic entry by less than a second, Finlin was awarded a spot that had gone unclaimed.
The Canadian Olympic trials for pool swimming and diving are both coming up in mid-May.
Source Agencies
