Canadian speed skaters carry major momentum into 2024-25 season on the big oval 

Canadian speed skaters won eight medals in Olympic-program events—10 medals overall—at the 2024 ISU World Single Distances Championships. It was the country’s best-ever world championship performance in long track speed skating.

It was largely a veteran squad of skaters who spearheaded that success and who will be looking to replicate it on the road to Milano Cortina 2026. 

While results from the 2024-25 season will not directly impact Olympic qualification, the six stops of the ISU World Cup circuit that lead up to the season-ending ISU World Single Distances Championships will provide plenty of opportunities for Canadian speed skaters to show they are among the cream of the crop in so many events. 

Here’s a quick look at some of Team Canada’s athletes and stories to watch in long track speed skating. 

Major Competitions in Canada

• ISU World Cup Speed Skating – January 24-26 – Calgary, Alberta 

World Championships

• ISU World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships – March 13-16 – Hamar, Norway 

Who and What to Watch 

Since they won Olympic gold in the women’s team pursuit at Beijing 2022, Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, and Isabelle Weidemann have continued to be a trio to beat, as evidenced by their world title in 2023 and world silver medal in 2024. But they are also making their mark as individuals. 

Last season, Blondin won her seventh career world championship medal in the women’s mass start, adding to a resumé that also includes an Olympic silver medal. That followed her two wins and two second-place finishes in the event throughout the World Cup season. If not for a DQ in one race, she likely would have won the overall World Cup title in the mass start for the fourth time in her career. Blondin’s consistency in what can be a wild and unpredictable event is nothing short of remarkable. She spent her so-called off-season competing in road cycling around North America.  

“I feel like I’m skating technically better this year, like something is just clicking, kind of like I’m back to where I was in 2019 when I had that really incredible year—I would say the best year of my career,” Blondin told Olympic.ca just a couple weeks before the first World Cup of the season. 

“The goal for myself is always to get onto the podium in multiple distances, the mass start, team pursuit, team sprint I’ll be, for sure, partaking in and then I’d like to get back on the podium in the 1500m and the 3000m. That was definitely a goal of mine last year and I had just called short from that a couple times.” 

Finishing atop the mass start World Cup standings last season was Maltais, as the former short track speed skating star earned her first individual World Cup title in long track. Maltais posted three podium performances in the event, but also showed her development in the traditional distances. She won a pair of 3000m bronze medals to finish third in the World Cup classification for the long distances. 

Approaching last season strategically, Weidemann didn’t compete in every World Cup stop, instead prioritizing her world championship preparation. The plan paid off with a silver medal in the 3000m, her first individual world championship podium. She finished fifth in the 5000m for two great results in the two individual events in which she is an Olympic medallist.  

At 38-years-old, Ted-Jan Bloemen is still going strong, winning 10,000m silver at the 2024 Worlds to follow up his bronze medal in 2023. Canada’s most successful male long distance speed skater, the two-time Olympic medallist is now a five-time world championship medallist across the 5000m and 10,000m events.  

The 10,000m was actually a double podium for Canada at the 2024 Worlds, with Graeme Fish skating to bronze. It was a welcome return to form for the former world record holder who had been 10,000m world champion in 2020. 

Canada had a medal-winning men’s team pursuit at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships. Among the athletes named to compete at the first couple of World Cups this season are two members of those squads: Connor Howe and Hayden Mayeur. Still just 24, Howe is one to watch in the 1500m with his five career World Cup medals in the last three seasons, not to mention his fifth-place finish at Beijing 2022. 

Among the sprinters, Laurent Dubreuil is Canada’s standout. In 2024 he won his second straight world silver medal in the 500m after being world champion in 2021. He finished fourth at the worlds in the 1000m, the event in which he won Olympic silver at Beijing 2022. He went on to win bronze at the 2024 World Sprint Championships where the 500m and 1000m are raced twice each. Week in, week out, Dubreuil is always in the World Cup podium mix. 

Canada’s top sprinter on the women’s side over the last couple of seasons has been Carolina Hiller. She is a two-time world champion in the team sprint (which unfortunately for Canada is not an Olympic program event) and last season improved to 13th place in the 500m World Cup rankings.