HIGH ACHIEVERS: Ottawa’s magnificent women excel in multiple sports

By Martin Cleary

Let’s take a timeout. Take a step back. Find a comfortable chair.

You’ll want to be sitting when you review the magnificent weekend that was presented by Ottawa’s elite group of women athletes.

Here’s the point-form version first, just to whet your appetite. Details will follow.

· Hannah Schmidt of Dunrobin won back-to-back World Cup ski cross races in Nakiska, AB., and is ranked second in the overall standings.

· Ivanie Blondin of Gloucester captured a pair of gold medals at the Four Continents long-track speed skating competition in Salt Lake City, teaming with the returning Isabelle Weidemann of Gloucester and Val Maltais for the team pursuit victory and emerging as the solo mass-start winner.

· Rachel Homan of the Ottawa Curling Club stole one point in the extra end to win her third Co-op Canadian Open women’s curling title and extend her Grand Slam of Curling title record to 15.

· Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club member Brooke Henderson had the lowest round (-4) Sunday at the HGV Tournament of Champions as the defending champion placed third overall at 10-under par.

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· Tennis doubles specialist Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa just keeps winning at the Australian Open as she has reached the quarterfinals in the women’s and mixed competitions.

It certainly was an overwhelming weekend of achievement for these six future members of the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame.

So, let’s take a closer look at how these results played out.

Hannah Schmidt started the 2024 portion of her 2023-24 World Cup ski cross season with plenty of momentum, after her opening five races – one victory on the same day her brother Jared finished first in Arosa, Switzerland, one third and five top-eight results.

By the time she finished her two World Cup races at Nakiska, her second and third victories this season had lifted her into second place in the World Cup standings and left her only 11 points out of first place.

Jared, who posted three consecutive wins earlier this season, remains on top of the men’s World Cup standings, after he was 18th on Saturday and 13th on Sunday.

Hannah Schmidt certainly showed she had fast skis as she qualified second in a solo time trial for the Saturday race and third in another individual race against the clock for Sunday’s test.

Needing to finish in the top two in each of her four-skier downhill races, Schmidt won her opening quarterfinal on Saturday, was second in the semifinal and won the Big Final.

“It’s awesome coming down with the home crowd cheering,” a smiling Schmidt told Alpine Canada, after her first of two wins. “I don’t think there’s anything like it in the world. Mar (Marielle Thompson of Whistler, B.C.) and I battled in the semis and the finals and it’s amazing to stand on the podium with her.”

“I woke up this morning feeling pretty good,” Schmidt told FIS. “I’ve been skiing fast on the track all week and just to kind of put it all together on race day feels pretty good.”

Thompson is Canada’s greatest women’s ski cross racer. She was the 2014 Olympic champion and silver medallist in 2022 as well as a 25-time winner on the World Cup circuit.

“It’s sweet to see Hannah get the win today, very special to share our 1-2 with Canada,” Thompson said.

On Sunday, Schmidt placed second in her quarterfinal, but was untouchable the rest of the way, winning her semifinal and final in her 40th World Cup start.

“I’m a little speechless,” said Schmidt, a former alpine ski racer who has found success as a ski cross racer. “I feel pretty awesome to win back-to-back in front of family and friends. This is the first time that I’ve been on the podium with Britt and that helps make this day, and this whole weekend, very special.”

Brittany Phelan, a fellow Mont-Tremblant skier who encouraged the Schmidts to try ski cross, finished third for her 14th World Cup career medal.

“We’ll definitely have a special dinner or something tonight and celebrate a little bit. We fly over to Switzerland tomorrow (Monday) morning, a quick turnaround, but I’ll definitely celebrate a little bit.”

Schmidt’s two World Cup wins were worth 13,500 Swiss francs each or $20,938 (Cdn). After seven races, she is in first place on the money list with $46,650 Swiss francs or $72,347 (Cdn.).

If you travelled 1,500 kilometres south of Nakiska to Salt Lake City, you would have found Ivanie Blondin and Isabelle Weidemann, who have been reunited and are preparing for next month’s world championships.

In the opening women’s team sprint on Friday, Blondin linked with Carolina Hiller and Maddison Pearman for a bronze-medal effort.

Blondin didn’t compete Saturday, but was on fire Sunday as she joined forces with Weidemann and Maltais to earn the gold medal in the team pursuit by more than 3.5 seconds over Japan. The final women’s race saw Blondin win the mass start by a two-second margin and with 66 sprint points.

Weidemann’s comeback was uplifting, after she left the World Cup tour following the second stop in Beijing and returned to Canada to prepare for the second half of the season and the worlds. She wasn’t happy with her times and results at the start of her season.

In her only individual race, Weidmann was forced to skate alone in her 3,000-metre test, after a skater withdrew. She skated a fairly consistent race and held the fastest time throughout at four minutes, 2.67 seconds, until Maltais posted the best time of 4:01.71 from the final pairing.

“It feels really nice to be back with the girls,” Weidemann told the International Skating Union. “Ivanie and I were chatting and I’ve done eight years of team pursuit with her, so it was bittersweet to watch, but it is really exciting to know that we have a deep pool of women.”

When Weidemann was away, her team pursuit spot was held by Béatrice Lamarche.

About the time Weidemann returned to Canada, Blondin tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to stay home for the two-week break between World Cup meets in China and Norway.

She resumed racing in Stavanger, Norway, and maintained her busy race schedule, despite still battling the infection.

Blondin rested during the Christmas-New Year’s break and returned to skating at Salt Lake City feeling strong, but she limited herself to three races instead of her traditional five or six.

Fifteen hundred kilometres due north in Red Deer, AB., Rachel Homan remained unflappable on the women’s curling circuit.

Homan and her rink of third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes stole one point in the extra end to edge Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 5-4 and win her third Co-op Canadian Open. It was the 22nd time Homan had defeated Tirinzoni in 30 career matches.

The victory allowed Homan to extend her Grand Slam of Curling record to 15 titles. Homan’s second Grand Slam win this season improved her win-loss record this season to 38-5 for a .884 winning percentage.

After scoring two points from a double-takeout in the eighth end to tie the final 4-4 and force an extra end, Homan’s rink could only watch and hope as Alina Paetz took the final shot for the Tirinzoni rink in the ninth end.

Paetz’s shot stopped about two centimetres past the counting Homan team stone and gave the Ottawa Curling Club team the $38,000 first-place cheque.

After winning pool B with a 3-1 record, Homan defeated Eun ji Gim of Korea 6-3 in the quarterfinals and Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg 8-3 in the semifinals.

At the HGV Tournament of Champions, Brooke Henderson was in contention to defend her golf title, but she fell four strokes shy of New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, who earned her 20th LPGA victory.

Henderson, however, did have the best round of the day on Sunday with a four-under-par 68. Earlier, she shot rounds of 69, 70 and 71 and finished at 10-under 278.

Gabriela Dabrowski already has three Grand Slam titles to her credit (U.S. Open women’s doubles 2023, Australian Open mixed doubles 2018 and French Open mixed doubles 2017), and there’s a possibility she could add two more this week at the Australian Open.

On Sunday, Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand defeated China’s X.Y. Jiang and Hanyu Guo 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the women’s doubles quarterfinals against Cristina Bucsa of Spain and Alexandra Panova of Russia.

In mixed doubles, Dabrowski and Nathaniel Lammons of the United States turned back Jamie Murray of Scotland and Yana Sizikova of Russia 6-3, 6-4 and will play Olivia Gadecki and Marc Polmans, both of Australia, in the quarterfinals.