Gloucester Concordes products Ivanie Blondin and Vincent De Haitre capped their highly successful 2015-16 international speed skating seasons with silver medal wins at the Mar. 11-13 ISU Speed Skating World Cup Final in the Netherlands.
World Championships gold medallist Blondin felt she let a victory slip away in the women’s mass start race, also finishing as the runner-up in the World Cup circuit’s overall standings to Dutch skater Irene Schouten.
“It’s frustrating, but winning the World Championship title was definitely more important to me this season,” the winner of two previous World Cup silver and two bronze mass start medals said in a Speed Skating Canada news release. “In the end, I get to come home with another medal and another accomplishment. I’m proud to bring this home for Canada.”
De Haitre earned his silver in the team sprint event alongside Gilmore Junio and Alexandre St-Jean, placing just one hundredth of a second behind the champion Dutch team en route to a 3rd-place finish in the overall World Cup series standings.
“We worked well as a team and went out and did what we knew we could,” De Haitre, who led the last of three lasps, said via Speed Skating Canada. “We communicate exactly what we want to do before the race and then focus on our individual tasks during the race.”
Gloucester’s Isabelle Weidemann, in her first year out of the junior ranks, finished the season ranked 16th in the women’s 3,000 m.