Roussel dominant en route to his first career national title; Brunelle wins top female skater honour for first time since 2024
MONTREAL, QUEBEC – It took nearly four hours longer than originally planned, but the 2026 Canadian Short Track Championships presented by Intact Insurance came to an exciting end on Saturday night, with Félix Roussel and Florence Brunelle earning national championship titles following three grueling days of racing.
A power outage at the Maurice Richard Arena stopped racing abruptly around 9:00am ET, leaving athletes, coaches and volunteers in the dark for a little over two hours. Event organizers and officials worked diligently to reschedule nearly a full day of races, which restarted at 2:00pm ET and came to an end just before 8:30pm ET.
Roussel, who won four gold and two bronzes over the course of the weekend, secured the first Canadian Championship title of his career with ease.
The Sherbrooke native started the day off by capturing his second 500m gold of the competition, rising to the top of the stacked 500m final that also saw Jordan Pierre-Gilles (Sherbrooke, Que.) and William Dandjinou (Montreal, Que.) reach the podium. The 25-year-old would later capture silver in the 1000m, behind Dandjinou and ahead of Mathieu Pelletier (Laval, Que.), but had already earned enough points by then to coast to the national title.
Roussel finished the competition with 20,000 points across his top four of six distances, giving him a sizeable lead over second place finisher William Dandjinou (Montreal, Que.), who earned 16,400 points. The 25-year-old Olympic silver medalist from Milano-Cortina 2026 was runner-up to Dandjinou for last season’s national crown.
Félix Roussel“I knew I had the overall title in the bag last night before bed, but it’s nice that it’s now official! It feels nice to be rewarded for all the hard work I’ve put in. I’m proud of my performances this weekend; I definitely didn’t think I would be this dominant. It was a long day, but I found the legs when I had to, and everything ended up working out.”
The battle for the top spot on the women’s side was equally as exciting, with Brunelle returning to the top of the overall rankings for the first time since 2024 thanks to three gold, two silver and one bronze medal.
The 22-year-old earned silver in the second 500m, behind Courtney Sarault (Moncton, N.B.), and capped the day off with gold in the second 1000m, ahead of Ann-Sophie Bachand (Sherbrooke, Que.) and Sarault. Those results helped her conclude the competition with 19,000 points in her top four distances, edging out Danaé Blais (Châteauguay, Que.), who gathered 16,200 points. Brunelle grabs the national title from Courtney Sarault (Moncton, N.B.), who went a perfect nine-for-nine at last season’s competition.
Florence Brunelle“I’m emotional because I’ve been searching this sense of lucidity in my racing for a while now. To be conscious of what it going on, not be afraid of having sore legs, and to keep pushing no matter what. While it was a long weekend and a very long final day, I was still able to fight. The attitude that I had during my races is something that I’m really proud of. I’m very happy to have finished the weekend off with this title and can’t wait for what it next.”
Speed Skating Canada’s high performance staff will now evaluate this weekend’s results and apply the selection criteria found in the 2026-27 Short Track Master Bulletin to determine the athletes that will represent their country international this fall. The composition of those squads will be announced publicly in the coming weeks.
The Canadian Ice Maples will kick-off their season with a pair of ISU Short Track World Tour stops on home ice. Vancouver will host the season opener from October 23-25, marking the first international short track event in the city since the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. The top skaters in the world will then travel to Montreal – host of last season’s sold-out World Championships – for the second stop from October 30 to November 1, before embarking off to Asia for a trio of events in late November and early December.
Tickets are still available for the World Tour events in Vancouver and Montreal. Visit www.speedskating.ca/tickets for more details.