Bloemen an inspiration to Canadian teammates
Blondin, Weidemann short of podium, but marvel at gold medallist’s triumph
GANGNEUNG, SOUTH KOREA The Olympic gold medallist in their midst has inspired Canada’ s speed skating team, but neither Ivanie Blondin nor Isabelle Weidemann was able to follow Ted-Jan Bloemen to the podium on Friday, try as they might.
“I watched it last night and I couldn’t fall asleep, I was so excited,” Weidemann said of Bloemen’s stirring victory in the sport’s marquee event, the 10,000 metres. “The whole team is, like, buzzing. It’s pretty cool.”
It was all of that, and Blondin couldn’t quite excise the image from her mind either, even as she was racing into fifth place in the women’s 5,000 metres on Friday. Blondin, a 27-year-old from Ottawa, trains with Bloemen and several other male skaters in Calgary and often skates directly behind him. That’s where she envisioned herself on the oval.
“I actually, in my race, kept picturing Ted in front of me. Like, Iwas the bunny and he was my carrot,” Blondin said. “He’s such a great inspiration. He’s a great mentor and one of my best friends on the team. I saw him winning and I couldn’ t be happier for my teammate. It’s such a great feeling. An honour, also, to be so close to an Olympic gold medal list, an Olympic champion .”
Based on full-season form, only Blondin had a realistic shot at replicating Bloemen’s result on Friday, but that’s why they race these things on ice. She was six seconds from the podium, while Weidemann was just an eyeblink behind her good friend and teammate when the official results flashed on the big screen.
Blondin crossed in 6:59.38, good for fifth place and a shrug of the shoulders. The 22-year-old Weidemann, who also hails from Ottawa, was just .50 seconds slower and in sixth, she too wishing for more from herself, but happy to go sub-seven minutes for the second or third time this season.
“I think, looking at Ted’s race yesterday, we know the ice is pretty fast and I was hoping to hit around my personal best, and I was a couple of seconds off of it,” said Weidemann. “One for the bank.”
And another one for the Netherlands. The Dutch wave that has washed over the podium here every single night propelled Esmee Visser to gold, with Czech Martina Sablikova in second and Olympic Athlete from Russia Natalia Voronina settling for bronze.
Blondin was less incredulous at this fifth-place finish than she was after struggling to seventh in the 3,000 metres earlier in the Games. That’s more her distance, as distinguished by a gold medal win at the final World Cup in Erfurt, Germany, before the Olympics.
“After the 3k, it was another stage of disappointment. Right now, I know I’m disappointed I didn’t get a medal, but I’m still proud of myself for how I felt and how I executed that race,” she said.
As she was straining for the finish line, she stumbled through the final turn and nearly fell.
“Just pure exhaustion,” she said. “I clipped my own blade. From not having the feeling of where my blades were because my legs were so tired. It’s kind of like trying to sprint as far as you can and then at a certain point you’re going to hit the wall, and then you’re going to trip yourself and fall. That’s kind of where I was at.”
She stayed upright, but didn’t have enough in the tank to get the job done.
That’s how it goes at the oval. At least most nights. Bloemen gave everyone hope that it doesn’t have to be that way.
“To be honest, I think when anybody beats them it’s pretty exciting, so you end up cheering for other countries as well, which is kind of cool,” said Weidemann.