Canada wins gold in women’s team pursuit speed skating at Beijing Olympics

BEIJING — Canada's Olympians have made many trips to the podium at the Beijing Winter Games, but heading into Tuesday, only one of those included a stop on the top step.

After an eight-day wait, Canada has claimed its elusive second gold medal courtesy of the women's pursuit speedskating team.

Valerie Maltais of Saguenay, Que., and Ivanie Blondin and Isabelle Weidemann of Ottawa combined forces to defeat Japan in the event's "A" final in an Olympic-record time of two minutes 53.44 seconds.

Japan had a slight lead entering the final turn, but Nana Takagi went down on the final turn and crashed into the padding, allowing Canada to cruise to the win.

Weidemann now has won a medal of every colour in Beijing. She won silver in the 5,000 metres and bronze in the 3,000.

"We're giving everything we have," the Ottawa native said. "We're all going to the blackout zone. We were just going to cross the line having spent it all.

"It took us a while at the end to figure it all out."

Takagi broke into tears after getting up to finish the race, and was consoled by teammates Ayano Sato and Miho Takagi, her sister.

The final time isn't recorded until all skaters cross the line, giving the Canadians an 11.03-second margin of victory.

"The last part of the race is our strongest," Blondin said. "I think that we would have caught them."

Weidemann became the second Canadian long-track speedskater to win more than two medals at a single Games. Cindy Klassen won five medals in Turin.

Maltais, for her part, became the third athlete in Winter Games history to win Olympic medals in short-track and long-track events, the Canadian Olympic Committee said.

While the golds have been hard to come by for Canada, it had 17 total medals (two gold, four