By Dan Plouffe
Local speed skaters competed near and far on the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 weekend. For the younger crowd, the Gloucester Concordes hosted an Ontario Cup short-track event for the province’s top youth skaters, while some of the older elite skaters competed nationally in Ste.-Foy, Que. and internationally in Kazakhstan.
“It’s great,” says Ontario Cup meet director Sandra Chénard, who founded the Concordes club in 1990. “They were posting in from Ste.-Foy and we were cheering all of them on.”
One drawback of the simultaneous competitions in different locales was that many regulars in the army of volunteers necessary to run the Ontario Cup event were out of town.
“We’ve called on a lot of people,” Chénard indicates. “The number of volunteers that have come out both from the Ottawa Pacers and here at our club have been crucial to us.”
Community spirit was certainly high for the RBC Sports Day in Canada-registered event, and it would be hard to find anything more Canadian to do than freezing in an arena.
“The skaters are shivering a little. The rink is cold – I’m going to write that on the report,” smiles Chénard, now in her 30th season as a speed skating volunteer.
Will Harris of the Pacers finished second overall in the Group 1 Division 2 men’s category, while Pacers Bethany McKinley-Young, Adrienne Gaudreault, Oliver Scharf, Ethan McKinley-Young, Noah Bouma, Konnie Hatzis and Connor Rogerson, and Concordes Matthew Daly and Antoine Parent earned top-10 finishes in their classes, but the biggest local highlights of the weekend unquestionably came from the Canada Cup long-track meet in Ste.-Foy.
Gloucester’s Isabelle Weidemann added another chapter to her growing legend of prowess on outdoor ice with impressive victories in the 1,500 m, 5,000 m and 3,000 m, which she won by over 3 seconds against a high-quality national field.
“A truly amazing sweep!” Weidemann’s mother and Concordes club president Laurel Rockwell reports by e-mail. “National team members were hanging their heads.”
Fellow Concorde Vincent De Haitre, who made his debut on the World Cup circuit earlier in November, was also victorious at the Canada Cup in the 1,000 m and 1,500 m.
The news from Astana, Kazakhstan and the season’s third World Cup long-track competition wasn’t as bright. Ivanie Blondin’s early-season woes persisted with a 12th-place result in the ‘B’ division to finish 22nd overall in the women’s 5,000 m – the distance in which she placed eighth at last season’s world championships.
Blondin finished at the bottom of the women’s 3,000 m ‘A’ division in her early-November season debut on home ice in Calgary.
“Definitely not my best race. Sometimes you need just need to pick yourself back up and come back stronger,” Blondin tweeted after the race, with the hashtag “sh–happens”.
Olympic trials loom large
Her results didn’t improve much in subsequent World Cup races in Salt Lake City, UT (where she was made alternate for Canada’s team pursuit entry on the heels of a fourth-place result in Calgary) or in Kazakhstan, where she missed a chance to pre-qualify for the Olympics.
The Dec. 28-Jan. 3 Canadian Olympic team trials in Calgary will now be of supreme importance for the 23-year-old, preceded by a Dec. 6-8 World Cup in Germany.
De Haitre, competing in his first career World Cups at age 19, posted back-to-back personal-best times in the 1,500 m in Calgary and Salt Lake, to finish 17th and 21st in the ‘B’ divisions.
Lauren McGuire of the Ottawa Pacers also made her World Cup debut at the same meets, placing 36th and 32nd in the women’s 3,000 m ‘B’ division.