By Dan Plouffe
Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin kicked off her international speed skating season with a sparkling four-medal performance at the Nov. 15-17 ISU Four Continents Speed Skating Championships in Japan.
Blondin is noted for packing her schedule with many more races than most skaters, and her excellence has presented a bit of a problem: she barely has a moment to collect one medal before she goes out to win the next.
On the opening day of the event, the Gloucester Concordes athlete won gold with Canada in the women’s team sprint competition, and then earned an individual bronze shortly after that in the women’s 1,500 metres.
“I feel pretty good about my 1500m,” Blondin said via Speed Skating Canada. “I was not able to warm down following the team sprint as we went straight to the medal ceremony, which took a while, and by the time that was over, I had to put my skin suit on and get back on the ice. I did a three-lap warm up and went to the start line.”
The Canadians won the team sprint by a comfortable 1.39-second advantage over South Korea in 1:27.87, and then Blondin finished 3.13 seconds back of world-record holder Miho Tagaki and .48 ahead of another Japanese skater for the final place on the 1,500m podium in 1:57.99.
“Technically, the race felt really good,” Blondin added. “The team sprint took a little bit out of my start – I didn’t have the pop that I normally would – but midway through the race I realized things were going well and my legs were actually feeling pretty decent. I was happy with the end time.”
Blondin went on to win a medal on each of the next two days of the meet as well. On the second day of competition, he was sandwiched between Ottawa’s Isabelle Weidemann and Canadian teammate Valérie Maltais in third place in the women’s 3,000m. That trio competed in the team pursuit event on the final day, but the reigning world championships silver medallists did not finish following a Weidemann wipeout.
Weidemann, who missed most of last season’s World Cup campaign but returned to win two silver medals at the 2024 World Championships in Calgary, fared better in the 3,000m, where she posted a time of 4:08.03 to edge out Blondin by .06 seconds.
“This was my first race of the year, so I don’t think I can read into it too much, but I hope that it’s an indication of how things will go this season,” Weidemann reflected via Speed Skating Canada. “I wanted to be a little conservative on the first lap and let myself feel that racing feeling again to get myself into it, and that paid off in the last few laps.
“I feel stronger and ready to race again, which is something that I didn’t really feel last year.”
Blondin concluded the championships with a second gold medal performance, winning her signature mass start discipline in a close sprint with USA’s Mia Manganello (.08 seconds back) and South Korea’s Ji-Woo Park (.11) in 9:23.28.
Replicating her four-medal pace week over week is of course a near-impossible task, but Blondin could approach the milestone mark of 100 career medals won on the World Cup circuit this season. She currently has 76 medals, dating back to her first in 2010.
There will be six World Cup events in the 2024-2045 season, including Jan. 24-26 in Calgary.
Hennessy wins 2 gold, Muhl earns silver, Bradley bronze at Pan Am canoe
Led by a double-gold medal performance by 2024 Paralympic silver medallist Brianna Hennessy, Ottawa paddlers captured four medals in total at the Pan American Canoe Sprint Championships in Uruguay.
Ottawa River Canoe Club athlete Hennessy topped both the women’s 200-metre VL2 paracanoe and KL1 parakayak races, while the Rideau Canoe Club’s Ruby Muhl and Peter Bradley earned silver and bronze respectively in the women’s and men’s C1 200m events.
Although she ended up with double gold, Hennessy had said before the competition that the goal wasn’t to be in peak form, but that it was important to attend the Pan Am event since the sport is still seeking a place in the Parapan American Games.
Ottawa Bicycle Club cyclist captures Canadian cyclocross title
Carter de Veer of the Ottawa Bicycle Club won the under-17 men’s race on Saturday at the Canadian Cyclo-cross Championships, while fellow local rider Alexander Woodford earned silver in the U23 men’s event.
de Veer got faster as the race progressed to outlast his rivals and win the title by 13.49 seconds in a time of 44:51.42.
The Grade 10 Merivale High School student overcame a 50-second deficit behind the three leaders through two laps of the Lévis, QC course by posting the fastest lap time in each of the final three treks around the circuit.
A U17 boys’ time trial bronze medallist earlier this year at the Canadian Road Cycling Championships, de Veer was also a cross-country running city-champion with the Merivale Marauders earlier this fall.
Woodford, who represents Ride With Rendall p/b Biemme, was second out of 20 competitors in the U23 event, finishing comfortably on the podium by over a minute and a half. The 20-year-old previously won a silver medal in a team competition with Ontario at the Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games.
Local athletes take silver & bronze at boccia nationals in Ottawa
Ottawa’s Tereza Cerqueira and Joe Radmore both hit the podium as the nation’s capital hosted the Canadian Boccia Championships for the first time in the event’s 30-edition history from Nov. 14-17 at the RA Centre.
Radmore, a three-time Paralympian in wheelchair racing from 1996 to 2004, took the bronze medal in the BC5 classification, while Cerqueira earned silver in the open division.
Past Canadian boccia Paralympians Lance Cryderman, Danik Allard and Iulian Ciobanu won the BC1, BC2 and BC4 events, while 22-year-old Joshua Gautier earned his first national title in BC3.
Gee-Gees men’s rugby places 7th at home university nationals
The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees matched their program-best finish with a seventh-place performance at the Nov. 13-17 Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championships. The host Gee-Gees finished with their first win of the event Sunday when they topped Memorial 33-17. They dropped a close 35-31 consolation semi-final to Victoria earlier after opening with a 42-12 quarter-final defeat to Guelph.
Oliver Davis, Findley Enticknap-Smith, Noah Gittens, Jett Nesrallah, Coen Quinn and Alex Spencer were members of the silver medal-winning Queen’s Gaels team, who lost the final to Montreal’s École de technologie supérieur 23-19.
Read More: Gee-Gees men’s rugby falls in national quarter-finals, dreams of official U Sports status
Last, but certainly not least…
• Ottawa’s Jonathan David setup Canada’s lone goal with a deft chip to Junior Hoilett in the Canadian men’s soccer team’s 1-0 road victory over Suriname in the CONCACAF Nations League quarter-finals. They play the return match Tuesday evening in Toronto in the two-leg, total goals series.
• A week after winning the Women’s Tennis Association Final doubles competition, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski didn’t get to play in Canada’s Billie Jean King Cup quarter-final defeat to Great Britain. Defending-champion Canada dropped both of its opening singles matches to lose the best-of-three series before what would have been the deciding doubles match.
• The Carleton Ravens were unbeatable, but the Brock Badgers gave the Ottawa Gee-Gees grief in Ontario University Athletics basketball play. Neither Brock nor Algoma came within 16 points of the Carleton men’s and women’s teams as the Ravens combined for a perfect record on the weekend to each remain undefeated at 7-0. The Ottawa women (6-1) lost their first match of the year to Brock (5-1) by one basket 58-56, while the 3-3 Brock men edged 5-2 Ottawa 69-66. Both Ottawa teams then handled Algoma in convincing wins.