Canada's short track speed skaters are poised to dominate Olympics

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The 2026 Winter Olympics in northern Italy are now less than four months away. And one of the first significant events on the road to these Games takes place in Canada this weekend as the short track speed skating World Tour opens at Montreal's Maurice Richard Arena.

If you're not familiar, the World Tour (formerly the World Cup) is a series of global competitions for the planet's top short track skaters. Typically, there are six stops on the tour. But this season it's been reduced to four to make room for the Olympics. Montreal hosts the first two (this week and next), then it's off to Poland (Nov. 20-23) and the Netherlands (Nov. 27-30). The world championships will also take place in Montreal in March, just a few weeks after the Olympics.

The first two days of each World Tour meet are devoted to qualifying for the medal rounds, which happen Saturday and Sunday. There are three individual distances for both men and women (500m, 1,000m, 1,500m) and three total relays (men's 5,000m, women's 3,000m and mixed 2,000m). Athletes accumulate points throughout the season, and at the end a Crystal Globe trophy is awarded to the leading skater in each distance and the overall champion. There's also a team Crystal Globe for the country with the most points.

And, because it's an Olympic season, this year's World Tour will help decide how many entries each country receives for the Games and who gets to fill them.

At the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, Canadian short track skaters won four medals — trailing perennial power South Korea (five) while tying host China, the Netherlands