Quebec skaters poised for glory at Olympics
In the grand scheme of things, predictions don’t mean anything. Perhaps that’s why Susan Auch has set the bar relatively low when contemplating how Canada’s shorttrack speedskating team will fare in the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics.
“Better than Sochi,” Speed Skating Canada’s chief executive officer said Wednesday during a presentation of the team at Molson Brewery.
The team captured three medals — gold, silver and bronze — at the 2014 Sochi Games, but is expected to have little difficulty exceeding that total when the competition begins Feb. 9 in South Korea. Some have predicted as many as eight medals could be realistic. The team will travel overseas Feb. 1 to get acclimatized.
Auch admits the bar has been set high. Canada has won 28 Olympic short-track speedskating medals since its official debut at the 1992 Albertville Games.
“I think they’re incredibly prepared. I think we have a really wellrounded team,” the 51-year-old former Olympic speedskater said. “We have some young, new skaters who are super hungry. And we have some history there — some past medallists that will bring this team up.
“From my experience, when you make this team you expect to win medals internationally. I think every one of these skaters is capable. For sure there’s pressure, but I think it’s good pressure. Good, excited, intense pressure. That intensity sometimes can bring you to successes you never knew you had in you.”
The team will be led by threetime Olympic gold-medallist Charles Hamelin and his fiancée Marianne St-Gelais. This will mark the final Olympic competition for the couple.
Hamelin’s Olympic experience goes back to Turin in 2006, when he was part of the 5,000-metre relay team that captured silver. He won a pair of golds four years later at Vancouver, along with one more in 2014. At 33, the 10-time world champion must be considered the team leader.
“I want to be part of a team that will make great things over there,” said the native of Ste-Julie. “But I don’t want those Games to define what I am as an athlete. What I’ve done in the past, good or bad ... no one can take that from me.
“I want to race like Charles Hamelin’s capable (of ). I want to leave everything on the ice. I’m grateful for the length of my career; I have to be proud of it. But my career’s not only the Pyeongchang Olympics. It’s the four Olympics ... the world championships.”
St-Gelais, who turns 28 on Feb. 17, seemed destined for stardom after capturing silver medals in the 500 and 3,000-metre relay at Vancouver. She won another silver at Sochi, but her overall performance was considered disappointing. St-Gelais and her new coach Frédéric Blackburn experienced some growing pains, which she said were due to a lack of maturity and communication. Those issues have since been resolved.
“Mentally, I wasn’t ready,” she said. “I was going through so much stuff in my head. I wasn’t ready to work with (Blackburn). After Sochi, we had a big conversation. We had to put everything on the table.
“Most of the problem was me. I wasn’t open to him and I didn’t want to work with him. I was 100 per cent sure Fréd wasn’t the man, but I was wrong. I’ve become a better athlete because of him.”
If Hamelin and St-Gelais are the present, 21-year-old Samuel Girard is considered the future. Although this will mark his first Olympic experience, team insiders believe he might have the best potential of anyone at Pyeongchang.
Considered a rising star, Girard already has won four medals — three silver and a bronze — at the world championships as well as multiple World Cup medals.
At the 2016 world championships in Seoul, he won silver medals in the 1,000 metres, behind Hamelin, and 5,000-metre relay. The following season in Rotterdam, he won silver in 1,500 metres and placed third overall in the competition.
If Hamelin’s considered the silent leader, Girard appears prepared to become the vocal captain once his role model retires.
“I’ve learned to be the leader. I want to continue what Charles started in the past,” said Girard, from tiny Ferland-et-Boilleau. “It’s a good challenge for me. I’m pretty young, but I want to act like I’m a leader and an old skater.”
Girard claimed he won’t be overwhelmed by the pressure or the magnitude of the world watching. He said he wants to approach the Olympics like any other competition.
“It’s so big, it’ll be tough to forget it,” he said. “But the same people skate, so I’ll try to do the same thing. It (that approach) has gone well in the past.
“If I can have a medal, it would be perfect.”
The skaters were selected last August, giving them the subsequent months to hone their talents and technique; they’ve had ample time to prepare, in other words.
“I think the team’s entirely capable,” Auch said. “There’s always good luck — and better luck. Some of it depends on that. I think this team can make good luck for themselves and perform better than in Sochi.”