Canada's Bloemen held off 5,000-metre speed skating medal podium at his final Olympics

Ted-Jan Bloemen of Calgary will end his Olympic speed skating career with one medal over 5,000 metres, a silver in 2018, after placing 13th in the men's event on Sunday in Italy.

The 39-year-old Dutch-born athlete covered 12 1/2 laps at Milano Speed Skating Stadium in six minutes 17.97 seconds.

Norway's Sander Eitram won in an Olympic-record 6:03.95, beating the previous mark of 6:08.84 by nearly five seconds. Metodej Jilek of Czechia captured silver (6:06.48) and Riccardo Lorello took bronze before the home crowd in 6:09.22.

Bloemen will also race the men's 10,000 final on Feb. 13.

He won gold in that event and 5,000 silver at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, ending an 86-year Olympic medal drought for Canada.

"Gold. I want to win," Bloemen told the Calgary Herald in January. "That's always the goal. I'm going to give it everything I have. I'll be satisfied if I've done that."

In November, he went 6:01.42 for bronze — Bloemen's second fastest time of his career — to break Sven Kramer's 18-year-old oval mark in Calgary before Eitrem and eventual winner Casey Dawson of the United States lower the time.

Bloemen didn't have a podium finish on the World Cup circuit or at world championships last season.

"I changed my training a little bit [last summer] and really, really worked very, very hard to get back to medal contention," he said at the November World Cup in Alberta.

Canada's most decorated male long-distance skater has collected over 25 World Cup medals. An eight-time medallist at world single distance championships, Bloemen won a 2020 world title in the 5,000 but was 10th at the 2021 Beijing Olympics and seventh at last year's worlds.