Canadian speed skater Valérie Maltais takes momentum into Calgary World Cup

Valérie Maltais has found another gear heading into her fifth Olympic Games.

The 35-year-old speed skater from La Baie, Que., opened the World Cup season with the fastest 3,000 metres of her life for her best result in the distance, which was a silver medal last week in Salt Lake City.

After another silver medal in women's mass start Saturday, and helping Canada take silver in team pursuit there Sunday, Maltais hopes to carry that momentum over to Friday's 3k in Calgary.

"I'm really excited to race another 3k. Here in Calgary the ice will be fast again, the crowd is good and so I want to do a race that I will execute the way that I'm planning to and feel like my body and everything else technically, tactically is aligned," Maltais said Wednesday at the Olympic Oval on the University of Calgary campus.

"That was my goal also last week. The focus is on execution."

Calgary is the second of five World Cup stops this season. Maltais is among 27 Canadians racing Friday to Sunday for not only medals, but qualification toward February's Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy.

Canadians won 16 medals across six World Cup stops during the 2024-25 season, including two gold, eight silver and six bronze.

Maltais is the only Canadian speedskater to win Olympic medals in both short track and long track. She earned short track relay bronze in 2014 in Sochi, Russia.

After switching to long track in 2019, Maltais, Ivanie Blondin and Isabelle Weidemann won team pursuit gold in Beijing in 2022.

Maltais would be among a handful of Canadian athletes at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., still competing into 2026.

That group includes hockey players Marie-Philip Poulin and Sidney Crosby and ski jumper Mackenzie