Long distance specialist reaches podium despite only having three World Cup starts this season
HEERENVEEN, NETHERLANDS – Canada’s Ted-Jan Bloemen won bronze in the men’s 10,000m at the ISU World Speed Skating Championships in Heerenveen on Sunday, elevating his country’s weekend medal total to seven.
Skating in the second of six pairs, Bloemen posted a time of 13:01.84 in the grueling 25-lap race, a mark that kept him on the podium even after the remaining eight competitors crossed the finish line.
It was the two-time Olympic medalist’s third career medal at the World Championships in the distance, having claimed silver in 2016 and 2020. Sunday’s performance was all the more impressive given the fact that the Calgary-based long-distance specialist made only three World Cup starts this season. He skipped out on the first two events for the birth of his son, Thias, and was penalized for a double false start during the third event of the campaign in Calgary this December.
Italy’s Davide Ghiotto skated a personal best time of 12:41.35 en route to winning his first career world title, while Dutch skater Jorrit Bergsma (12:55.64) won silver in front of a energetic hometown crowd at the Thialf.
A few other Canadians were in medal contention on Sunday but fell just a bit short.
Ivanie Blondin (1:54.71) missed the women’s 1500m podium by only 0.32 seconds, narrowly edged out by Japan’s Miho Takagi (1:54.39) for the bronze medal. Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong of the Netherlands (1:53.54) was first, while Norway’s Ragne Wiklund was second (1:54.30).
Fellow Team Pursuit champion Isabelle Weidemann (6:49.94) also earned a fourth-place finish, finishing just off the women’s 5000m podium. Irene Schouten of the Netherlands skated a track record and personal best time of 6:41.25 to capture gold. She was joined on the podium Wiklund of Norway (+4.90) and Martina Sáblíková of Czechia (+6.53).
Meanwhile, Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu (+1.65) and Connor Howe (+1.93) both cracked the top-10 of the men’s 1500m, finishing seventh and tenth, respectively. The race was won by American phenom Jordan Stolz, who brough home his third World Championship title in as many days, having also claimed the 500m and 1000m crowns.
Canada concludes the 2023 ISU World Speed Skating Championships with seven medals, bringing home gold in the women’s Team Pursuit, women’s Team Sprint and men’s Team Sprint, silver in the women’s Mass Start (Blondin) and men’s 500m (Dubreuil) and men’s Team Pursuit, and bronze in the men’s 10,000m (Bloemen).
They conclude the 2022-23 international season, one of their most successful of the past decade, with an impressive 30 medals across six World Cup competitions, including 8 gold, 14 silver and 8 bronze.
A handful of long track skaters will compete in the two remaining Canada Cup competitions in Calgary later this month, where they will look to accumulate points towards the end-of-season Canadian rankings, which are used to help select the athletes who are nominated to the National and NextGen teams for next season.
Quotes
“It was an emotional World Championships for me. I never really hit the ice well in Heerenveen and that’s why my 5000m went completely wrong. After that, I tried to analyze things and fix my mistakes, but I was a bit short on time. I was panicking a bit today and my emotions were running high, but I had the courage to show up and fight to keep the lap times fairly flat and fight all the way through the end. I was pretty relieved and proud of myself that I made this happen. It was very lovely to come home with a medal at the end of the day and get rewarded for the courage and the fight that I put up. But I’m a little disappointed that I couldn’t show my true form and full potential. I guess I’ll just have to work hard for another year and show it next World Championships at home in Calgary.”
Ted-Jan Bloemen
Results
- Women’s 1500m
- Ivanie Blondin: 4th
- Béatrice Lamarche: 12th
- Maddison Pearman: 16th
- Women’s 5000m
- Isabelle Weidemann: 4th
- Valérie Maltais: 8th
- Men’s 1500m
- Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu: 7th
- Connor Howe: 10th
- Tyson Langelaar: 13th
- Men’s 10,000m
- Ted-Jan Bloemen: 3rd
- Graeme Fish: 5th