Canadian speedskaters Weidemann, Maltais and Blondin revamp team pursuit just in time

Canada's Isabelle Weidemann, left to right, leads teammates Valerie Maltais and Ivanie Blondin as they skate during the women's team pursuit competition at the ISU World Cup speed skating event in Calgary, Alta., Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

MILAN — They held onto their Beijing success too long.

Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais agree they were slow adapting to changes in speedskating’s team pursuit after winning Olympic gold in Beijing in 2022.

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“The strategy that we used at the Olympics felt so good for us, and so we kept using it,” Weidemann said.

Being shut out of World Cup podiums last season and barely qualifying for the pursuit at the 2025 world championship was a wake-up call for the Canadian trio.

“Last year was a complete bust,” Blondin said.

Team pursuit is three athletes from one country skating close together in a single file, and working as one unit to complete six laps as quickly as possible. The clock stops when the last skater of the three crosses the finish line.

Where skaters previously rotated the leader by changing positions during the race, more countries adopted a no-change formation post-Beijing, pushing one another with a hand on the back instead.

“Strategy-wise, other teams started doing no exchanges, and then they started closing the gap on us,” said Blondin. “We were pretty slow with adapting to that.”

Rotating to freshen the front engine seems intuitive, but Blondin pointed out that exchanges can cost a team two-tenths of a second per lap.

So the Canadians started this season with Ottawa’s Weidemann in front for all six laps, Maltais of La Baie, Que., in the middle and Ottawa’s Blondin at the rear.

“The strategy looks counterintuitive because you’ve got one person at the front and you think you should be sharing the load, but actually at the front, especially for the first few laps, I’m really relying on my teammates,” Weidemann said. “I’m skating lap times at the front that I actually can’t skate by myself, so I’m going faster than I’ve ever gone.”

The Canadian women will attempt to defend their gold medal starting Saturday in the quarterfinals at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.

“When we show up to the line, we’re all nervous, but we know we can do it because we’re going to start together and finish together,” Maltais said.

The six-foot-two Weidemann is the metronome setting the tempo.

“My job is to do eight consistent strides and hit the corner in the same entry position every time and to not make any sudden movements at the front,” Weidemann said.

Added Maltais: “For myself, being in second position, I’m really able to tuck in really well behind Isabelle and kind of skate blindly and give a really good push for Izzy.”

Blondin, a full foot shorter than Weidemann, has no pusher behind her. She wants to stay in the draft of her two teammates, and get her hand on the back of Maltais as much as possible, with the intention of crossing the finish line tucking in beside Maltais.

“A lot of teams really struggle with that third spot,” Weidemann said. “Ivanie, from her mass start and short-track background as well, we like to say she’s impossible to drop. You just can’t get rid of her. She’s so little, she’s so agile.”

Maltais’s move back to Quebec from Calgary after Beijing in 2022 also meant the Canadian women trained together less.

“Previous to Beijing, we were training together every single day, so it became very natural,” Blondin said. “Over the years, it just became harder and harder to skate in line behind each other and know how the person skates.”

So in addition to revamping formation, the three women came together in Calgary in August and Quebec City in October for pursuit-specific camps.

They also spent a few days in Salt Lake City ahead of the season’s first World Cup in November, when they placed second just three tenths of a second off their Canadian record.

The trio then placed second in Calgary the following week and won the last team pursuit in Hamar, Norway, before the Olympic Games.

“We haven’t felt like that since ’22, just being able to nail it,” Blondin said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press