Laurent Dubreuil and Ivanie Blondin reach top-10 in 500m and 1,500m
STAVANGER, NORWAY – Ted-Jan Bloemen won the silver medal in the first 10,000m event of the ISU World Cup Speed Skating season, finishing second in the longest distance on Saturday in Stavanger.
After a pair of fourth-place results in the 5000m to kick-off the season, Bloemen (Calgary, Alta.) reached the podium in the 10,000m, crossing the finish line in with a time of 13:12.33 (+9.62), outracing pair-mate Patrick Roest of the Netherlands in the final laps. Bloemen, bronze medalist in the distance at the 2023 ISU World Speed Skating Championships, was joined on the podium by gold medalist Davide Ghiotto of Italy (13:02.71) and fellow Italian Michele Malfatti (+10.18), who won bronze.
Canada also earned a pair of top-10 results earlier in the day.
In the men’s 500m, Laurent Dubreuil (Lévis, Que.) finished in sixth place with a time of 35.05 (+0.40). Wataru Morishige of Japan won gold (34.65), with Tingyu Gao of China (+0.01) and Tatsuya Shinhama of Japan (+0.06) rounding out the podium.
In the women’s 1,500m, Ivanie Blondin (Ottawa, Ont.) came away with a seventh-place finish, racing to a time of 1:58.39 (+2.52). Japan’s Miho Takagi took the top spot with a time of 1:55.87, ahead of Dutch teammates Antoinette Rijpma-De Jong (+1.08) and Marijke Groenewoud (+1.12), who finished second and third, respectively.
The ISU World Cup Speed Skating in Stavanger will wrap up on Sunday with the men’s 1,500m, women’s 500m and 5,000m, and the Team Sprint events. Races can be watched live on CBC Sports digital platforms, including CBCSports.ca and the CBC Gem app.
Quotes
“I’m happy to break my streak of fourth places, finally on the podium now. I’m really happy with the way it’s been going so far this season. Today the race was really hard. The ice was slow. I really knew going into it that it was going to be a long battle but I think from lap 10 on or something I was just holding on for dear life to keep my lap times coming. Patrick Roest challenged me in the middle of the race and just steamed by me, and I had no answer whatsoever so I just tried to keep my head together and keep my own pace going, and that worked out pretty well. In the end, he came back to me so it was kind of a fun race but a really, really hard challenge, one of the hardest races of my life, but I’m really proud to be able to hang on to those lap times and finish on the podium today. Now I’m going back to training and do it again next week. I’m really looking forward to the second half of the season and hopefully I can go one step higher at the world championship at home in Calgary.”
Ted-Jan Bloemen
Results
500m
- Laurent Dubreuil: 6th
- Anders Johnson: 12th (Division B)
- Joshua Telizyn: 15th (Division B)
1500m
- Ivanie Blondin: 7th
- Valérie Maltais: 11th
- Béatrice Lamarche: 10th (Division B)
- Maddison Pearman: 16th (Division B)
- Laura Hall: 21st (Division B)
10000m
- Ted-Jan Bloemen: 2nd
- Jordan Belchos: 2nd (Division B)
- Graeme Fish: 4th (Division B)