Future becomes the present
Budding short-track star Kim Boutin wins bronze medal after video check
Kim Boutin just nailed the success part of successor.
The heir apparent to Canada’s reigning and soon-to-be retired short-track queen Marianne St-Gelais now has the Olympic medal to prove herself ready, and it came wrapped in trademark shorttrack drama.
A last-lap tussle with South Korean race favourite Minjeong Choi in the 500-metre final left Boutin fourth across the finish line, albeit temporarily and unofficially. And as it is with so many short-track results, the referee was steeling himself to play a crucial role in front of the video-replay machine.
With a boisterous home country crowd on the edge of their seats. With the fate of the South Korean favourite in his hands. Not for the feint of heart.
Minutes passed. It was an excruciating delay for everyone but Arianna Fontana, the Italian legend who crossed the line first, an eyeblink ahead of Choi, and was pretty certain the gold was hers. She was wrapped in her country’s flag and crying, but they were tears of joy.
Finally, with St-Gelais and Boutin side-by-side, the official placements were flashed on the big screen at Gangneung Ice Arena. St-Gelais and Boutin burst into massive grins and embraced one another. Choi was disqualified for impeding Boutin.
Fontana was golden, Yara van Kerkhof of The Netherlands took silver. Bronze was Boutin’s, the moment was theirs, mentor and protégé.
“She’s my inspiration,” Boutin said of St-Gelais. “I think it takes a lot for her to be there and to celebrate with me the medal, because I know she also really wanted this medal and she really deserved the gold medal.”
You don’t get what you deserve in short track every night. St-Gelais was involved in a first-corner scrape with van Kerkhof in the first heat of the night, and it didn’t go well. St-Gelais was disqualified. Confused. Disappointed. Crushed.
“I’m not happy with the decision,” she said after her race, but before Boutin made it onto the podium. “I don’t think I deserved it. I was ahead of the girl, she fell and I’ve been called. We never saw that in short track before. Starts are always aggressive. Starts are always like that. Everybody wants to be in the top two. But for some reason, I’ve been called on that.”
The Canadians all agreed it was an odd decision not to simply restart the race, but there was no avenue of appeal. As the competition wore on, St- Gelais sat with her family in the stands and had a good cry. But by the time Boutin was set for the final, St- Gelais was back on the sidelines, cheering her onto the ice. That’s leadership.
And there has been a bit of synchronicity at play in the fortunes and misfortunes of the Canadians in just the first two days of the Olympic short track meet.
Boutin is to St-Gelais what Samuel Girard is to St-Gelais’ fiancé Charles Hamelin: the next wave, the future of short-track speedskating in Canada. While Hamelin was penalized in the 1,500 metres to kick off the Olympic competition, Girard made it to the final and finished fourth.
He was ecstatic, and Hamelin took some pride in knowing that he has shepherded the kid to the cusp of success.
And then on Tuesday, Boutin succeeded where her mentor did not. St-Gelais was also as proud as could be and had in fact happily foreshadowed Boutin’s medal-winning performance in the wake of her own disappointing finish.
“Well, she needs me, but not really. I’ve been, not her mentor, but a little bit, when she has questions, when she wants to know something, be sure about something, she’s coming to me.
“But honestly, she sometimes already knows the answer. She knows everything. I’m just there to make sure everything is fine, everything is looking good. But honestly, she knows what to do. She already has all the tools she needs to be on the podium.”
Boutin put them to the test on Tuesday as the future became the present. She won a medal in a race that is not exactly her strength, but for the start. That’s a good sign.
Boutin needs to work on strategy and positioning through the rest of the race to become the kind of force that St-Gelais has been in the 500 metres over the years.
“It’s my strength for the 500,” Boutin said of the start. “So I did my job. After that, I have a lot to learn. I could be a really good skater at the 500. I’m pretty excited for the next four years.”
Not to mention the next few days, which offer more chances at the podium in the 1,000, 1,500 and relay.
Said women’s team coach Frederic Blackburn: “When you know you have an athlete like that, they perform well in the 500 and her best distance is the 1,000 and the 1,500, that’s looking good.”
So is the future. Boutin will have to take St- Gelais’ role between the end of these Games and the start of the next Olympics in Beijing in 2022. She’s ready.
She’s my inspiration. I think it takes a lot for her to be there and to celebrate with me the medal, because I know she also really wanted this medal and she really deserved the gold medal. Kim Boutin, about teammate Marianne St-Gelais