Canada’s short-track team looks to turn strong season into world gold

MONTREAL – Canada’s short-track speed-skating team wants to turn a superb World Cup season into world championship gold.

Led by veteran Charles Hamelin and a resurgent Marianne St-Gelais, Canada picked up 44 medals at six World Cup meets this season, it’s best haul since earning 47 in 2003.

Now the squad is looking for world championship hardware.

“Overall this year, with 44 medals, we were really strong,” Charle Cournoyer of Boucherville, Que. said Wednesday.

The team of five men and five women leaves March 4 for Seoul for the March 11-13 world championships.

Hamelin, a three-time Olympic gold medallist who has been among the world’s best for more than a decade, is aiming for the world championship overall title that has thus far eluded him.

St-Gelais, who had 11 medals in individual distances in 12 races this season, is gunning for a first world championship title at any distance.

“She has a pretty good chance this year,” said women’s team coach Frederic Blackburn. “She needs to keep the same focus she’s had since the beginning of the year.

“She competed against good skaters this year and she knows how they race, but she will need to be at her best.”

St-Gelais has always been best in the 500- and 1,000-metre events, but at Blackburn’s urging, the 26-year-old became a 1,500-metre threat as well. She won gold over that distance at World Cups in Montreal and Dordrecht, Netherlands.

“She didn’t like the 1,500 because she didn’t know how to skate it but I think she’s starting to like it better,” said Blackburn.

Valerie Maltais of La Baie, Que., and Kasandra Bradette, who like St-Gelais is from St-Felicien, Que., will also race individual distances while Audrey Phaneuf of St-Hyacinthe, Que. and Montreal’s Namasthee Harris-Gauthier are on the relay squad.

The men will only have two running individual distances this year because they didn’t place at least two in the top-16 overall at last year’s event in Moscow.

The coaches picked Hamelin and 19-year-old Samuel Girard of Ferland-et-Boilleau, Que., while Cournoyer, Sasha Fathoullin of Calgary and Francois Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., will go in the relay.

It was a close call between Girard and Cournoyer, a 2014 Olympic bronze medallist who had his best World Cup season with three gold medals, all in 1,000-metre races. The coaches felt Hamelin and the more versatile Girard gave them the best chance to have two in the top-16.

“They both made strong cases to get that spot,” said men’s team coach Derrick Campbell. “They were both great at World Cups.”

Added Cournoyer: “For sure, I’m disappointed, but I’m not disappointed with the decision. Sam Girard’s a really good pick too.

“Now I can focus on the relay and I’m excited for it.”

The relay will be a battle. It is no longer just Canada and South Korea going for gold. Strong teams from Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary have emerged in recent years.

“The objective is not so much to win the world championships, it’s to win Olympic gold in two years, so we’re still working on a lot of things,” said Cournoyer. “But we are still the strongest team on the circuit right now.”

Notes — Francois Hamelin got a scare in December when he left a bag containing his skate boots on a plane and it took a few days to get them back. He shouldn’t have that problem again. Eye-D, a company that makes luggage equipped with a computer chip, has agreed to sponsor the 28-year-old skater.