Canada’s Ivanie Blondin captured bronze in the 5,000 metre at the speed skating World Cup in Calgary on Friday.
Blondin, skating in the final pair next to fellow Ottawa native Isabelle Weidemann, bided her time through the gruelling race before finding an extra gear in the final few laps to propel her from a projected sixth-place finish onto the podium.
Blondin’s final time of six minutes 54.81 seconds was only shy of Dutch gold medallist Irene Schouten (6:48.06) and Norwegian silver medallist Ragne Wiklund (6:52.86).
Weidemann, who won a medal of each colour at the Beijing Olympics including 5,000m silver, placed seventh at 7:00.66. She was edged out by Saguenay, Que., native Valérie Maltais, whose personal-best time of 7:00.59 slotted her in sixth.
WATCH | Blondin races to 5,000m bronze:
Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin claimed a bronze medal recording a time of 6.54:81 at the 5,000- metre World Cup speed skating event in Calgary.
Connor Howe, the top-ranked man in the 1,500m, was the top Canadian finisher in the event, placing ninth with a time of 1:44.13. Fellow Canadians Tyson Langelaar and Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu slotted in at 15th and 16th, respectively.
Howe placed fifth in the distance at the Beijing Olympics last February.
Dutch skaters Kjeld Nuis (1:42.59) and Thomas Krol (1:43.34) climbed the podium together by taking gold and bronze, with American Jordan Stolz sandwiched in between for silver (1:43.19).
In the women’s 500m, Prince George, B.C., native Carolina Hiller posted a personal-best time of 37.85 seconds to place 14th.
Live coverage of the event continues on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
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