Weekend Roundup: A busy weekend in winter sports for Team Canada
From back-to-back World Cup victories to setting records, Team Canada athletes put down impressive performances and took home numerous medals in winter sports all over the globe.
In case you missed the action, let’s take a look at what happened:
Speed Skating – Long Track
READ: Speed Skating: Canada wins silver in women’s team pursuit
READ: Blondin achieves fifth consecutive gold medal at the ISU Speed Skating World Cup
READ: Speed Skating: Team Canada dominates at World Cup in Japan
On Friday, Canada won three medals at the Speed Skating World Cup in Nagano, Japan. Ivanie Blondin continued her gold streak, winning the women’s mass start event. Jordan Belchos won the men’s mass start event, marking the first time ever that Canada had won both the women’s and men’s mass start at a World Cup.
Canada also found their luck in the men’s team sprint, where Alex Boisvert-Lacroix, Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu, David La Rue, Tyson Langelaar skating to a bronze medal.
Blondin won her fifth consecutive gold medal on Saturday. She set a new track record for the 3000-metre event with a time of 4:00.243s in Nagano, Japan. Blondin’s five gold medals on the World Cup circuit have been in different events – the 5000m, the 1500m, Team Pursuit, Mass Start and the 3000m.
Isabelle Weidemann raced to a bronze medal in the 3000m to share the podium with Blondin. On Saturday, the men’s team pursuit also secured a bronze medal. The squad of Ted-Jan Bloemen, Graeme Fish, Belchos and Langelaar finished the race in 3:44.876s.
On Sunday, Canada won its final speed skating medal of the weekend – a silver in the women’s team pursuit. The team composed of Blondin, Weidemann and Valérie Maltais secured their silver medal in 2:57.811.
Freestyle Skiing – Ski Cross
READ: Team Canada’s ski cross team achieves two World Cup double podiums
At the Ski Cross World Cup in Montafon, Austria, Canada celebrated two double podiums. Reigning Olympic champion Marielle Thompson won gold for her first medal of the season, while teammate Courtney Hoffos claimed the bronze.
For the men, Kristofer Mahler won silver with Brady Leman right behind him winning the bronze.
Snowboard – Big Air
READ: Max Parrot wins gold, Laurie Blouin adds a bronze medal during FIS big air World Cup event
At the Shougang Park jump in Beijing, China, Max Parrot won gold at the FIS Snowboard Big Air World Cup. The construction of this jump was just completed, and will be a venue for Beijing 2022.
Parrot recently returned to competition after announcing he was cancer-free. Parrot defeated Sweden’s Sven Thorgren by one point to win the gold. Laurie Blouin won bronze for her first medal of the season. Her first run put her in a lower position, although a strong second run gave her a final score of 155.75.
Bobsleigh
READ: Bobsleigh: Team Kripps wins back-to-back gold at Lake Placid
READ: Team Kripps wins 4-man bobsleigh gold at Lake Placid for 2nd consecutive year
Team Kripps showed their dominance in the four-man bobsleigh, winning back-to-back gold medals at Lake Placid.
The first of two gold medals came on Saturday, as the team of Justin Kripps, Ryan Sommer, Cam Stones and Ben Coakwell successfully completed two runs in 1:49.50 seconds to defeat Latvia (1:49.89s) and Austria (1:49.97s). On Sunday, they won gold with just a 0.3 second lead over Germany (1:49.75) to finish with an overall time of 1:49.45.
Also on Saturday, the duo of Christine de Bruin and Kristen Bujnowski won the bronze medal for two-woman bobsleigh.
Freestyle Skiing – Moguls
READ: Kingsbury returns to claim top spot at Moguls World Cup in China
READ: Kingsbury and Dufour-Lapointe return to the podium at Moguls World Cup
Mikaël Kingsbury won two medals at the Freestyle Ski Moguls World Cup in Thaiwoo, China. On Saturday he won silver in the individual event, and was 0.6 points away from taking first place from Japan’s Ikuma Horishima. Kingsbury could not be kept from the top spot for long. He returned to action on Sunday to claim victory in the dual moguls event, for his 84th career podium finish.
On the women’s side, Justine Dufour-Lapointe was in fourth place after her first run on Saturday. However, she fought rebounded in her second run and gained some air to take the bronze medal.
The next World Cup will take place at home from January 24-25 in Mont-Tremblant.
Freestyle Skiing – Big Air
READ: Teal Harle celebrates big air World Cup silver
In Beijing on Saturday, Teal Harle won the silver medal for his first podium since March 2018. Norway’s Birk Ruud scored 0.25 more than Harle to take home the gold medal. Sweden’s Jesper Tjader earned the bronze medal (183.00).
Freestyle Skiing – Halfpipe
READ: Bowman and Karker ski to World Cup bronze at Copper Mountain
(L-R) Noah Bowman, Aaron Blunck and David Wise on the podium for the Copper Mountain Halfpipe World Cup on Friday, December 13, 2019. (Credit: FIS)
At the Copper Mountain Halfpipe World Cup on Friday, Noah Bowman and Rachael Karker both won bronze. This is the second halfpipe event of the World Cup circuit, after the season opener in Cardrona, New Zealand back in September.
Rugby Sevens
READ: Canadian Women capture bronze at Cape Town Sevens
The women’s rugby sevens team defeated France in a hard-fought bronze medal match on Sunday at the World Rugby Sevens Series in Cape Town, South Africa. Canada had a 22-17 overtime win against France to secure the bronze medal. The final game-ending try was scored by Julia Greenshields after an offload from Brittany Benn in the extra time.
Track Cycling
READ: Track Cycling: Beveridge claims silver at World Cup in Brisbane
READ: Team Canada claims women’s team pursuit bronze at World Cup in Brisbane
In Brisbane, Australia, at the fifth UCI Track Cycling World Cup of the season, Allison Beveridge cycled to a silver medal in the Women’s Omnium, earning 127 points overall. This was her second medal of the weekend, after winning bronze on Friday in the team pursuit with Jasmin Duehring, Georgia Simmerling and Annie Foreman-Mackey.
The sixth stop of the World Cup season will be at home in Milton, Ontario from January 24-26.
Judo
At the Judo Masters in Qingdao, China, Jessica Klimkait won the -57 kg bronze medal after she defeated Japan’s Tsukasa Yoshida. She won Canada’s only medal at this event.
Athletics
At the Sanyo Ladies’ Half-Marathon in Okayama, Japan, Rachel Cliff set a Canadian half-marathon record of 1:10:06. She beat her own previous record of 1:10:08, set at the Woodlands Half-Marathon in 2018.
Taekwondo
After finishing sixth in the World Taekwondo rankings for the -57 kg category, Skylar Park has qualified herself for Tokyo 2020. See all of Team Canada’s qualifications here.
