Maltais finishes second in Mass Start; Hiller-Donnelly, Lamarche and Blondin lead Canada to silver medal in Team Sprint

INZELL, GERMANY – Valérie Maltais reached the podium for a second consecutive day on Sunday, bringing home silver in the women’s Mass Start to conclude the season’s final ISU World Cup Speed Skating event in Inzell.

The 35-year-old Maltais (La Baie, Que.) sprinted to a second place finish with a time of 8:38.77 in the 16-lap race, placing her behind only Marijke Groenewoud of the Netherlands (8:38.32). Her teammate Ivanie Blondin (Ottawa, Ont.) finished just off the podium in fourth place (8:39.30), with American Mia Manganello (8:39.29) narrowly outstretching her at the finish line to stop the clock just a hundredth of a second quicker.

It was the second Mass Start silver medal of the season for Maltais, who also finished second at the season opener in Salt Lake City. She concludes the campaign ranked fourth overall in the distance with 221 points, behind teammate Blondin (234) – who won a gold and bronze medal across five events – as well as Groenewoud (252) and Manganello (253).

“I’m happy with my result and I’m happy with my final sprint. I was trying to work on my track pattern and also work on my confidence in the corners. For some reason, even though I have a short track background, I get scared going into the corners at those speeds. Obviously, I wanted a podium but today was more about how I felt while racing. I’m kind of surprised with my weekend. I just finished a hard training block and didn’t know exactly how I would feel. I have some good legs and seem to be recovering well, so I’m very happy. Hopefully I will keep feeling better – we’ll see in two weeks!”

Valérie Maltais

Blondin teamed up with Béatrice Lamarche (Quebec City, Que.) and Carolina Hiller-Donnelly (Prince-George, B.C.) to guide Canada to silver in the women’s Team Sprint (1:26.84). The Dutch set a track record time of 1:25.52 to win gold, while the host German’s finished in bronze medal position (1:28.45). Canada finishes the World Cup season ranked second overall in the non-Olympic distance with 108 points across two events, placing them only 12 points behind the Netherlands for first.

Canada’s long track speed skating team will remain in Inzell for a week-long training camp, before heading to Italy for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan. Racing at the Milano Ice Park’s temporary oval in Rho runs from February 7 to 21.

Results

Women’s 500m

Carolina Hiller-Donnelly: 8th
Béatrice Lamarche: 10th
Brooklyn McDougall: 20th

Men’s 500m

Anders Johnson: 8th
Cédrick Brunet: 17th

Women’s Mass Start

Valérie Maltais: 2nd
Ivanie Blondin: 4th

Men’s Mass Start

Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu: 15th
Daniel Hall: 18th