William Dandjinou and Courtney Sarault bring home individual titles; Canada wins team crown for second consecutive season

DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS – The Canadian Ice Maples are in a class of their own atop the short track speed skating world after concluding the 2025-26 ISU Short Track World Tour season by winning the men’s, women’s and team Crystal Globes.

William Dandjinou (Montreal, Que.) repeated as the men’s Crystal Globe winner thanks to a stellar campaign that saw him capture eight individual distance medals (7 gold, 1 silver). The 25-year-old secured the title after winning 1500m gold and 500m silver on Saturday, giving him an insurmountable lead in the standings heading into the final day of racing.

Dandjinou won the 1000m B Final in his last individual distance this afternoon, helping him finish off the campaign with 876 points, substantially more than his closest competitor Pietro Sighel of Italy (664 points). He becomes the second back-to-back Crystal Globe winner on the men’s side, joining Korea’s Park Ji-Won, who accomplished the feat during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons.

“In an Olympic season you never know how people are going to show up, so for me to show up in this way in amazing. There were still a lot of mistakes on my part so it’s hard for me to be fully satisfied. I feel like short track has never been as good as it is now. The competition is very hard so if I do manage get more Crystal Globes in the future it’s going to be one of the biggest achievements in short track. In the meantime, I need to focus on the Games.”

William Dandjinou

Courtney Sarault (Moncton, N.B.) cliched the women’s Crystal Globe title with a pair of medals on Sunday, winning silver in the 1500m before unseating defending World Champion Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands in the women’s 500m to bring home gold. Starting from second position, the 25-year-old Canadian caught the Dutch speedster by surprise with an outside pass in the third lap to grab the top spot. Fellow Canadian Florence Brunelle (Trois-Rivières, Que.) finished the distance in bronze medal position.

Sarault concludes the season with nine medals (5 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze) and becomes the first Canadian woman to capture the title as overall champion, joining previous winners Kristen Santos-Griswold of the United States (2025), Kim Gilli of Korea (2024) and Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands (2023). The reigning Canadian Champion concludes the season with 980 points, 150 points ahead of runner-up Corrine Stoddard of the United States (830 points).

“This is unreal! I came into today hoping to make every A Final and definitely wanted to put up a fight in both my races. I fell short of the gold in the 1500m, felt that I made a few technical errors. In the 500m, I knew it was my last race so I wanted to give it everything I had and leave it all on the ice. I found myself beside Xandra off the start and I just carried my speed on the outside and took it from there, and it worked out pretty great for me. It’s always fun going up against her. I knew I had a good lane and I wanted to see if I could challenge her. I’m just really happy with how I finished this World Tour”

Courtney Sarault

After winning the inaugural Team Crystal Globe title last season, the Canadian Ice Maples repeated as champions again in 2025-26. The team won an impressive 31 medals (15 gold, 7 silver, 9 bronze), giving them 5,656 points across four events, comfortably ahead of second place finishers the Dutch Lions (4,807 points).

“Our team is super happy! We knew we were strong coming into the season and that it was our title to defend. We wanted to fuel off that, without putting too much pressure on ourselves. We were very supportive of each other the entire way. We’re super happy and it’s going to be a good night of celebrating for sure.”

Courtney Sarault

The Canadian Ice Maples in Dordrecht – Sarault, Dandjinou, Brunelle, Steven Dubois, Félix Roussel, Jordan Pierre-Gilles, Danaé Blais, Rikki Doak, Mathieu Pelletier, Ann-Sophie Bachand, Philipe Daudelin and Claudia Gagnon – brough photos of Kim Boutin and Maxime Laoun onto the ice with them during the trophy presentation, ensuring their two injured teammates were recognized for their contributions to the repeat performance.

“Some of our teammates that contributed to the Team Crystal Globe were not here today, but we felt it was important that they were represented and on the stage with us.”

William Dandjinou

Results from this season’s four ISU Short Track World Tour events will be used to determine the number of quota spots earned by each country for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Italy. The Canadian high performance program will also use them to help select the five men and five women who will represent their country at Milano-Cortina 2026, a list that will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Results

Women’s 1500m

Courtney Sarault: 2nd
Danaé Blais: 13th
Florence Brunelle: 21st

Men’s 1000m

Steven Dubois: 5th
William Dandjinou: 6th
Félix Roussel: 13th

Women’s 500m

Courtney Sarault: 1st
Florence Brunelle: 3rd
Rikki Doak: 57th

Relays

Mixed: 4th
Men’s: 5th