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Newsletter by Keiran Gorsky, Dan Plouffe & Martin Cleary
The Canadian women’s team pursuit trio brought their newly revamped routine to the Olympics and the reviews from the stopwatch were outstanding. Women’s 3,000 metres bronze medalist Valérie Maltais tucked in between Ottawans Isabelle Weidemann and Ivanie Blondin as the Canadians topped the pack in the quarter-finals with a time of 2:55.03.
The event features three skaters competing as a single aerodynamic unit, their time recorded only when the final member crosses the finish line. The gold medal winners in Beijing 2022 admitted to resting somewhat on their laurels as their rivals concocted strategies to top them on the World Cup circuit.
For much of the event’s history, the conventional wisdom was for skaters to regularly swap positions so as to freshen the “engine” at the front. Even if trios sacrificed a few fractions of a second every time they traded places, it was deemed a necessary trade-off to combat always-impeding fatigue.
After Beijing, more and more teams challenged that long-held assumption, switching to the now-universal “Push” model, where skaters stay in place for the whole race. Weidemann, Maltais and Blondin stuck with their tried and true golden method even as their results began to lag behind.
“The strategy that we used at the Olympics felt so good for us, and so we kept using it,” Weidemann told The Canadian Press.
That became untenable at the 2024-25 ISU World Cup, where Canada failed to record a single podium finish. This competitive season, the three veterans finally made the all-important switch – immediately, their fortunes changed for the better. The front seat proved a natural fit for the six-foot-two Weidemann.
“The strategy looks counterintuitive because you’ve got one person at the front and you think you should be sharing the load, but actually at the front, especially for the first few laps, I’m really relying on my teammates,” Weidemann indicated. “I’m skating lap times at the front that I actually can’t skate by myself, so I’m going faster than I’ve ever gone.”
A full foot shorter than Weidemann at the rear of the pack, Blondin anchors the team with her long background in short-track events. Hoping to expand her breadth of competition, the two-time Olympic medallist returned to hockey-arena racing for the first time in 14 years when she competed at the 2023 Canadian championships.
The pivot didn’t ultimately succeed, but her experience provides an important contrast to Weidemann’s steady locomotive-like acceleration. Though team pursuit races are comparatively long, short-track skaters are much better acquainted with the physical contact inherent to team pursuit.
“A lot of teams really struggle with that third spot,” Weidemann noted. “Ivanie, from her mass start and short-track background as well, we like to say she’s impossible to drop. You just can’t get rid of her. She’s so little, she’s so agile.”
The Canadian trio were paired with Belgium’s Sandrine Tas, Isabelle van Elst and Fran Vanhoutte in today’s quarter-finals. The Canadians got off to a relatively slow start before hitting their stride and overtaking the Belgians in the third lap. As they rounded the corners of the track, Blondin would separate herself from her teammates and then re-join the pack with a small accelerating shove.
In their final lap, Canada caught the Japanese and Dutch to move into first place, setting up a semi-final matchup against the fourth-place United States on Tuesday.
“It will be a good semi-final, [the one] we wanted, and I think we will be able to do an even better race,” Maltais said after the race. “We’ll be able to start a little faster next time.”
Cédrick Brunet made his Olympic debut Saturday in speed skating as well. In an interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky before the Olympics, Brunet reminisced on the last time he regularly trained outside. At the height of the COVID pandemic, the long construction of the state-of-the-art Centre de glaces in Quebec City left him without a sheet of ice to skate on.
Instead of the four-and-a-half-hour drive the Gatineau native would soon take up, Brunet made the much simpler journey south to Brewer Park, where he sprinted around the outdoor Olympic-sized ice oval.
“I did a lot of laps in -25 and -30, I remember that a lot actually,” the 25-year-old laughed. “I’m done with that.”
Brunet is still content to sharpen a pair of hockey skates on a cold winter’s day, but was surely more comfortable this afternoon under the bright lights at Milano Speed Skating Stadium where he made his Olympic debut in the men’s 500 m.
Paired with China’s Lian Ziwen, Brunet got off to a blazing sprint nearing 60 km/hr before fading at the second corner of the track. He finished with a time of 34.95 seconds, roughly 0.2 behind Lian, placing him 23rd of 29 competitors.
His friend and mentor Laurent Dubreuil, who won the race that carved out Brunet’s spot at these Olympics, broke an Olympic record with a time of 34.26, though it only proved enough for bronze. The USA’s Jordan Stolz and Jenning de Boo of the Netherlands managed to edge him out three pairs later to claim the top two spots on the podium.
“It’s fun to be competing against him (Laurent) because he’s one of the best in the world,” Brunet said in his pre-Olympics interview. “And I’m just trying to be like a sponge around him and how he works out like he’s doing on the ice, how the techniques work for him, and trying to do the same things.”
Canada loses third curling match in a row by one point
Rachel Homan and Emma Miskew’s quest to end Canada’s 12-year medal drought in women’s curling took a dire hit Saturday after consecutive losses to Great Britain and Switzerland. The latter game ensnared Team Homan in the double touching controversy that has inexplicably become one of the major storylines at these Olympics.
Yesterday, Marc Kennedy of Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs engaged Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson in a lively, rather expletive-rich debate over whether Kennedy had illegally touched a stone after releasing the handle.
In the first end of today’s game against Switzerland, Homan had a stone removed after an official indicated she had extended her finger to touch it. Homan denied it, though she could indeed be seen extending her finger after releasing the stone on the replay.
“I don’t understand the call. I’ll never understand it,” Homan said after the game. “Never done that. Has nothing to do with us. Refs shouldn’t be in our game, there’s no infractions on the women’s side at all. It was absurd.”
“Everyone has phones, like can you do a replay option?” Miskew asked the official after the fact. “I was right beside her and I did not see her double touch the rock, and I would say if I saw it.”
The Canadians still took a point from the end, and jumped out to a 4-0 lead after three as Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni struggled with their shotmaking in the early going. A heavy throw allowed the Canadians to steal two in the third.
The Swiss took two points in the fourth and fifth ends and four in the seventh, snagging a 6-5 lead. Canada forced an extra end, but fourth Alina Pätz placed a shot perfectly onto the button to win the game.
Team Homan missed a number of key shots en route to a 7-6 loss to Great Britain’s Team Sophie Jackson earlier that day.
Everything seemed to go south after a stray piece of debris sent third Tracy Fleury’s shot spiralling through the house in the third end. After much consternation, Homan attempted a double-takeout on her final throw, but only managed to remove a single red stone. The British took three points from the end.
“I just didn’t make as many shots as I normally do out there,” indicated Homan, who shot a dismal 53% on the morning.
Things only got worse from there. Homan missed her final shot of the fourth in an attempt to push her own stone onto the button. Her throw flew through the house without making contact as Britain stole a point to take a 4-1 lead.
The Scottish curlers put the game all but out of reach in the eighth. Homan opened up an opportunity for a deuce when her final throw caught a British rock at the top of the house and skittered wide of the button.
“I think we’re struggling a little bit with, like, lines,” Miskew suggested after the game. “We’re throwing a lot of rocks and just missing. That’s part of curling and I think we’ll be able to figure it out and figure out if there are any trends we can find.”
The British opted to play defence in the final end, picking away at Canada’s guard. Fourth Rebecca Morrison removed the tying stone on the final shot of the game, Britain conceding two but holding on for their first win of the competition.
Canada may now be forced to win all of their remaining round robin games to make it to the semifinals. They’ll have Sunday off to lick their wounds before getting back at it Monday.
In biathlon, Shilo Rousseau struggled with her shooting once again in the women’s 7.5 km sprint. Rousseau finished 26th place when she competed in the event at the final stage of the Biathlon World Cup in Ruhpolding, where she hit all 10 of her shots.
Rousseau appeared briefly on-camera just as she was starting her race. This time, she missed two prone shots and one standing, each tacking on a 150 m penalty loop, ultimately leaving her in 80th place of 91 competitors.
In women’s hockey, Munster goaltender Kayle Osborne drew back into the lineup and backed up former Ottawa Charge goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer as Canada beat Germany 5-1 in the quarter-finals.
Ottawa Charge Brianne Jenner scored in the win and Emily Clark recorded an assist.
Canada will play Switzerland in the semifinals on Monday.
Ottawa Olympians in action on Feb. 15:
Day 9 Preview: Valérie Grenier primed for final and best event, bobsleigh coming up
Four capital region Olympians will be in action Sunday morning (Eastern Time), headed by alpine skier Valérie Grenier in her strongest event.
So far, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games have been unkind to the 29-year-old from St. Isidore, ON. She was disqualified in the women’s downhill for leaving the start hut too late due to an equipment blunder, she was disappointed to place 20th in the downhill portion of the women’s team combined event and she was one of many athletes who did not finish the women’s super-G when she missed a gate.
But Grenier’s best prospect all along for a top result, and possibly a podium, comes in Sunday’s giant slalom. The three-time Olympian’s lone World Cup medal this season came in the GS on her home hill at Mont-Tremblant, and the Olympic course has brought her both elation and pain, High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary details in his feature on Grenier.
“Cortina is a hill I know so well. I know exactly when to go and how to ski it. It’s a place I love. That can be an advantage, but a lot of us have skied it,” Grenier told Cleary. “For sure, the Olympics are about medals. But I hate to think of results. I want to ski my best times with the least mistakes.”
In cross-country skiing, Gatineau’s Antoine Cyr will ski a classic leg as he joins his Canadian teammates for the men’s 4 x 7.5 km relay. They are one of 10 entries in the event.
Both Ottawa biathletes will compete on the same day for the first time Sunday. The shooting range hasn’t been kind to rookie Olympians Shilo Rousseau and Zach Connelly so far, but Connelly had an encouraging performance in Friday’s men’s 10 km sprint when he made it to the second shooting station in 12th place before finishing 48th after missing four targets.
It’ll be another day until competition gets underway for men’s bobsleigh on Monday, but we’re getting started with our preview today since we’ve got two athletes to highlight in advance of the two-man event.
We’ll start with Mike Evelyn O’Higgins, who is making his second Olympic appearance.
If you’ve been watching the Olympics, then you’ve surely seen the 32-year-old many times in an RBC Training Ground commercial pushing a sled full of weights – similar to the homemade cart at CANAM Strength and Conditioning on Colonnade Rd. where many local athletes have been introduced to the sport and made Ottawa into an unlikely bobsleigh hub.
It was at RBC Training Ground that tests uncovered his potential to be a great bobsledder following his varsity hockey career at Dalhousie University. The All Saints Catholic High School grad has since established himself as Canada’s top brakeman in recent years, and he’ll now take the start line in both the two-man and four-man events.
Evelyn O’Higgins’ path into bobsleigh mirrors that of many athletes who grew up playing other sports and found their way into the thrilling ice adventure later in their careers. He told the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky before the Games that that’s what makes bobsleigh the perfect Canadian sport in his eyes.
“I like to think of it as a great melting pot,” described Evelyn O’Higgins, who was also part of Canada’s bobsleigh team in Beijing 2022. “I think it’s kind of emblematic of Canada to have this sport where everyone comes together.
“If you have the raw tools of speed and power and cold weather resistance and, I’ll say, high tolerance for pain and suffering, then you can be a good bobsledder.”
Like fellow Team Canada bobsledder/CANAM product Jay Dearborn, Evelyn O’Higgins has an engineering background, which can serve as both a blessing and a curse in a sport where technology plays a key role in performance.
“[Bobsled] can be complicated when you try to put it all together, but it’s governed by simple principles,” he explained. “So it’s nice to think you can fully understand it, but there’s a lot of, I’ll call it sled science, that gets misunderstood and cannot be fully understood.
“So it’s a little bit helpful, but too much can be paralyzing. It’s about understanding where that sweet spot is.”
During his preparation for the Olympics, Evelyn O’Higgins has continued to work full-time as an electrical systems engineer.
Certainly that’s part necessity in a sport that is anything but a lucrative pursuit for Canadian athletes, who had to pay team fees to cash-strapped Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton of around $30,000 to compete on the World Cup circuit this season. But as Evelyn O’Higgins, who has ADHD, detailed in an RBC Spotlight interview with CBC Sports, he’s always found he excels whenever he’s busiest.
WATCH CBC SPORTS RBC SPOTLIGHT | Canadian bobsledder Mike Evelyn O’Higgins shares his experiences navigating ADHD while pursuing his second Olympic Games.
He’ll take his first two Olympic runs down the track at Cortina d’Ampezzo on Monday morning.
