CANADIAN SPEEDSKATER SETS GOLDEN RECORD
PYEONGCHANG, Korea, Republic Of — After settling for silver in the men’s 5,000 metres, Calgary speedskater Ted-Jan Bloemen lamented that he didn’t have more in the tank to challenge Dutch great Sven Kramer for gold.
His tank was full of high-grade octane on Thursday, as Bloemen dominated the competition in the men’s 10,000 metres and won the gold medal in an Olympic-record time.
Skating with confidence and consistency in the second-last pair, Bloemen laid down a time of 12 minutes, 39.77 seconds. It was a mark not even Kramer, one of the greatest speedskaters of all time, could match.
Perhaps daunted by the high bar set by Bloemen, Kramer flagged during his skate and finished a shocking sixth. Bloemen’s camp was so sure of victory that coach Bart Schouten gave the eventual Olympic champion a victory hug while Kramer still had 2,000 metres to skate.
Bloemen’s gold was part of a banner day for Canada’s Olympians that saw the luge relay team of Alex Gough, Sam Edney, Tristan Walker and Justin Snith win silver, and pairs figure skaters Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford take bronze.
Today had a less auspicious start for Canada, as figure skater Patrick Chan stumbled on his triple Axel in the men’s short program, leaving him in sixth place ahead of Saturday’s free skate.
The three-time world champion from Toronto scored 90.01 points, 21.67 behind first-place skater Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan.
Spain’s Javier Fernandez was second with 107.58 and Japan’s Shoma Uno scored 104.17 for third.
Skating to Dust in the Wind by Kansas, the 27-year-old Chan opened with a huge quadruple toe loop, but the fall of his Axel cost him huge points.
“Yeah, I do, I do [hate the triple Axel],” said Chan, who is competing in his final Olympics. “I’ve been blessed with good skating skills, but not good triple Axel skills.”
Keegan Messing of Sherwood Park, Alta., was 10th after the short program with 85.11 points.
Chan helped Canada win gold in the team event earlier in the Games, finally reaching the top step of the Olympic podium.
Canadian snowboarder Meryeta O’Dine was forced to withdraw from today’s snowboardcross event after suffering a concussion in training earlier this week.
The Prince George racer said she was disappointed, but the decision was made for her health.
“As an athlete, you always want to push your limits, but it’s important to stop when you have to,” she said in a statement. “I am proud to have travelled here.”
No Canadians advanced to the snowboardcross big final. Tess Critchlow of Kelowna finished ninth.
Dustin Cook of Lac-SainteMarie, Que., was the top Canadian in the men’s alpine super-G with a ninth-place time of one minute 25.23 seconds. Matthias Mayer of Austria won the race.
Manuel Osborne-Paradis of Invermere was 22nd, Broderick Thompson of Whistler was 23rd and Toronto’s Jack Crawford skied off course early and didn’t finish.
On Thursday, Canada’s women’s hockey team finished the round-robin undefeated with a 2-1 win over arch-rival United States. Canada’s men’s hockey team opened with a convincing 5-1 win over Switzerland.
With their hockey victory Thursday, the Canadian women clinched the top spot in pool play.
Meghan Agosta of Ruthven, Ont., and Hamilton’s Sarah Nurse scored in the second period for the Canadians, who are aiming for a fifth straight Olympic title.
Geneviève Lacasse of Kingston, Ont., stopped 44 shots.
“I always expect a lot of shots against the U.S. and we did a great job keeping their shots to the outside,” Lacasse said. “They usually get a good amount of shots, but not necessarily that many quality ones.”
With her 16th goal in her fourth Olympics, Agosta moved into second all-time behind Canada’s Hayley Wickenheiser (18).
Both the U.S. and Canada had already booked berths in Monday’s semifinals, having won their first two games in Pool A.
In men’s hockey, Canada found its offence early as René Bourque and Wojtek Wolski each scored twice in a workmanlike win over the Swiss.
Maxim Noreau had a goal and an assist for the Canadians, while goaltender Ben Scrivens made 28 saves.
“The team played well,” Scrivens said. “We’ve been here for a week now. I think everyone was excited to get going. I thought we executed, stuck together.”
Canada sat third in the overall medal standings after six days of competition with 13 medals (four gold, five silver, four bronze). Norway led with 17 medals, followed by 15 for Germany.
Canada’s four gold medals were fifth behind Germany (9), Norway (6), and the Netherlands and United States (5).
The 31-year-old Bloemen, who moved from the Netherlands to Calgary four years ago to compete for Canada, added the Olympic record to his world record in the 10,000-metre distance.
Dutchman Jorrit Bergsma, the 2014 victor in the 10,000, was second and briefly held the Olympic record with a time of 12:41.98, until Bloemen erased it in the next pairing.
Italy’s Nicola Tumolero took the bronze. Toronto’s Jordan Belchos finished fifth with a careerbest time of 12:59.51.
Bloemen’s father Gerhard-Jan was born in Bathurst, N.B., and lived in Canada for seven years before his family returned to the Netherlands.
Since arriving in Calgary in the spring of 2014, Bloemen has obtained his Canadian citizenship and married his Dutch wife, Marlinde, in a ceremony in Calgary.
Elsewhere, Canada earned its second Olympic luge medal in dramatic fashion as the relay team raced to a time of two minutes 24.872 seconds.
The powerhouse Germans won gold in 2:24.517 while Austria took bronze in 2:24.988.
The Canadians mobbed Walker and Snith after their doubles run put Canada atop the standings with just the Austrians and Germans to go.
The medal was redemption for the Canadian team, which finished fourth in the relay when it made its Olympic debut four years ago — a mere tenth of a second back of third.
The foursome got bumped up to bronze for what would have been Canada’s first luge podium at a Games in December, when two Russian competitors were among dozens of athletes from the host nation stripped of their 2014 results and banned for life for alleged doping violations by the International Olympic Committee.
But the Canadians were once again pushed back to fourth following the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s recent decision to overturn the punishment for 28 of those athletes, including lugers Albert Demchenko and Tatiana Ivanova.
“It shows the strength of our team. That fuelled us. That fuelled us for a long time,” Edney said. “I just know that we put in all the hard work and we did everything right. Tonight was about sliding for each other and sliding for Canada, and we did that.”
Gough secured Canada’s firstever Olympic medal in luge with a bronze in Tuesday’s women’s race.
Meanwhile, Duhamel and Radford ended a dry spell for Canada in pairs figure skating, capping their final Olympics with a bronze medal.