Blondin, Gélinas-Beaulieu skate to mass start silver on home ice at worlds in Calgary
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Canadians earned double silver medals in the mass starts on Saturday at the World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships at the Olympic Oval in Calgary.
Dutchwoman Irene Schouten and Canada’s Ivanie Blondin repeated their Olympic one-two finish in women’s mass start. Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu of Sherbrooke, Que., claimed silver in the men’s mass start behind victorious Bart Swings of Belgium.
Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu of Sherbrooke, Que., places second in the men’s mass start final for his third medal (one gold, one silver, one bronze) at the ISU World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships in Calgary.
Schouten recovered from an early fall in the 16-lap mass start to work her way back into the pack. The Dutchwoman edged Ottawa’s Blondin in the final sprint as she did in Beijing’s Olympic Games two years ago.
Blondin’s teammate Valerie Maltais fell with just over three laps to go in a collision with Schouten. Gelinas-Beaulieu’s silver medal was the best international result of his career in an individual race.
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Ivanie Blondin of Ottawa finishes second in the women’s mass start final for her third medal (two silver, one gold) at the ISU World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships in Calgary.
American star Jordan Stolz won his second gold medal in as many days with his victory in the 1,000-metre event earlier on Saturday.
The 19-year-old became the first male to win world championship gold in three individual distances last year.
He’s a win away from repeating his hat trick at Calgary’s Olympic Oval. Stolz competes in the 1,500-metre race Sunday.
He posted a track-record time of one minute 6.05 seconds less than a month after setting a 1,000-metre world record in Salt Lake City.
Different day… same 🥇 result!<br><br>Jordan Stolz 🇺🇲 wins his second <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/WorldSpeed?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#WorldSpeed</a> title of the year, claiming victory in the 1000m 🔥<br><br>It’s silver for Zhongyan Ning 🇨🇳 and bronze for Kjeld Nuis 🇳🇱<a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/SpeedSkating?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#SpeedSkating</a> <a href=”https://t.co/SId2SKtE38″>pic.twitter.com/SId2SKtE38</a>
—@ISU_Speed
China’s Ning Zhongyan was second in 1:06.53 and Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands third in 1:06.80.
Japan’s Miho Takagi took the women’s 500 metres in 1:12.83.
China’s Han Mei was the silver medallist in 1:13.27 and Dutchwoman placed third in 1:13.28.
Live coverage of the world championships continues Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Play-by-play and colour commentary will be supplied by CBC Sports’ Signa Butler and Anastasia Bucsis, a former Olympic speed skater.
