Dandjinou captures second gold medal of the weekend; Pierre-Gilles earns second career medal in 1000m
MONTREAL, QUEBEC – Canada’s short track team reached the podium four times on Sunday, winning both the men’s and mixed gender relays to close out the ISU Short Track World Tour in Montreal. They conclude their two-week homestand with 14 medals, including 9 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze.
The medal haul started soon after the doors to the Maurice Richard Arena opened this afternoon, as the 2000m mixed relay squad of Steven Dubois (Lachenaie, Que.), Kim Boutin (Sherbrooke, Que.), Félix Roussel (Sherbrooke, Que.) and Florence Brunelle (Trois-Rivières, Que.) captured gold in the first distance of the day.
The Canadians (2:37.684) were matched up against Netherlands (2:37.960) and Japan (2:40.162) in a three team final, jockeying for position throughout much of the race. A well-executed relay by Boutin helped push Brunelle past her Dutch counterpart and into the lead. Roussel and Dubois kept the pace high during their final legs, fending off a hard pressing attack from their rivals to hold the lead and cross the line first.
It was a long-awaited first-place finish for Canada, who won gold for only the second time since the mixed relay was added to the international circuit six seasons ago. The country’s only other victory was at the World Cup in Almaty in December 2018, where Boutin, Samuel Girard, Alyson Charles and Cédrick Blais reached the top of the podium.
The day was bookmarked with another relay victory, as the men’s team of Dubois, Roussel, William Dandjinou (Montreal, Que.) and Jordan Pierre-Gilles (Sherbrooke, Que.) repeated as gold medalists in the 5000m marathon with a time of 6:41.532. .
The quartet were forced to implement a different strategy than the one that helped them secure the top spot last weekend, working their way from the back of the field with nine laps remaining, before picking up the speed to create a sizeable gap between their competitors from Korea (6:42.045) and Italy (6:42.442).
Things were equally as exciting in Sunday’s individual distances.
Danjinou and Pierre-Gilles earned a double podium for Canada in the 1000m, finishing first and third, respectively. The 23-year-old Dandjinou, who has build a comfortable 172 point lead atop the Crystal Globe standings, earned his third individual distance medal of the weekend, cruising to victory ahead of Korea’s Jang Sungwoo (1:25.010) and teammate Pierre-Gilles (1:25.072), who matched his best international result in the distance, having a previous won bronze at the World Cup in Almaty during the 2022-23 season.
On the women’s side, Boutin took part in a stacked 1500m final, where she fell short of the podium, finishing fifth. The Sherbrooke native also skated in the 500m B Final alongside teammate Rikki Doak (Fredericton, N.B.), finishing second and fourth, respectively.
Canada sits atop the overall ISU Team Crystal Globe standings after the first two World Tour stops of the season with 3,106 points, ahead of Korea (2,578) and the Netherlands (2,145).
The ISU Short Track World Tour returns in December, with stops in Beijing (December 6-8) and Seoul (December 13-15), before concluding the season with two European events, in Tilburg (February 7-9) and Milano (February 14-16). The international short track season comes to an end with the ISU World Short Track Championships, from March 14-16 in Beijing.
Quotes
Jordan Pierre-Gilles“It was no doubt a dream weekend for us, but also a nightmarish weekend for the other teams! We are extremely happy and proud with our performances. The fact that we have so much confidence in ourselves, and our abilities, really gives us an edge over our opponents. We found ourselves in some tough situations, but we managed to work our way through them and remain calm. Our strategy was quite different from last weekend, where we were in the lead for nearly the entire race. Today, things were moving quite a bit. We found ourselves in the back but managed to move to the front at the right moment. And when we’re in the lead at that point in the race, things tend to end positively for us!”
Results
500m
- Kim Boutin: 7th
- Rikki Doak: 9th
- Florence Brunelle: 18th
1000m
- William Dandjinou: 1st
- Jordan Pierre-Gilles: 3rd
- Félix Roussel: 17th
1500m
- Kim Boutin: 5th
- Danaé Blais: 10th
- Florence Brunelle: 14th
Relays
- Mixed: 1st
- Men’s: 1st