Sarault, Dandjinou secure women’s, men’s titles at Canadian short track championships

MONTREAL — Courtney Sarault earned two more wins to extend her gold-medal streak to nine and finish as the women’s short track speedskating national champion on Sunday.

The Moncton native’s 30,000 points across her top six distances gave her a comfortable lead over the next closest competitor, Kim Boutin (21,760).

Sarault won Sunday’s 1,500-metre event with a time of two minutes 39.528 seconds to capture her eighth gold medal of the competition. The 25-year-old wrapped up the competition, with another gold medal in the 500 in 42.988 seconds.

“It feels unbelievable,” Sarault said. “Coming into this competition, I didn’t expect to have this great of results, but I got the job done and then some, so I’m super excited and proud of myself.”

On the men’s side, it was Montreal’s William Dandjinou who pulled away with the national title. The reigning Crystal Globe winner narrowly edged out teammate Felix Roussel by 1000 points – 28,000 to 27,000 – to repeat as overall champion.

Dandjinou and Roussel were at the front of the pack in the 1,500 final before Dandjinou lost an edge during a last-minute pass attempt that caused both skaters to crash into the protective matts. The race was won by Mathieu Pelletier (2:16.603), who was joined on the podium by Maxime Laoun (2:16.687) and Philippe Daudelin (2:17.304).

Dandjinou went on to grab silver in the 500 in 41.666 seconds. Laoun (41.049) struck gold, Pelletier (41.755) took bronze and Roussel finished fifth.

“I feel pretty good,” Dandjinou said. “These past two weekends have been quite difficult. I got the job done, but if I’m honest, I didn’t do it the way I wanted to.

“I was strategic but I feel I wasn’t necessarily the best skater during this competition. That tells me that I still have a lot of work to do.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2025.