Pursuing potential: Canadian Olympic speed skating champs change tactics ahead of Winter Games

Ever since speed skaters Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, and Isabelle Weidemann skated to team pursuit gold at Beijing 2022, the rest of the world began working on a way to catch them.

With the next Winter Games looming, Canada’s defending Olympic champions know that resting on their laurels is not an option.

Blondin, Maltais, and Weidemann are in Salt Lake City for the first World Cup event of the long track season, albeit an abridged version because of Milano-Cortina 2026 in February.

The trio arrived at the Utah Olympic Oval a few days earlier than the rest of their Canadian teammates for a team pursuit-focused camp “to get the band together again,” Maltais said. They’re here to work on a new strategy the Canadians hope can once again put them on top of the podium.

They’ve skated together twice before in the run-up to the 2025-26 season, but this one is different. It’s the first time they’ve held a camp singularly devoted to the discipline that they won Olympic gold in nearly four years ago. Since then, they’ve seen their competitors eclipse them, spurring a change in race tactics.

Team pursuit is the excitement of speed skating multiplied by three

In the women's team pursuit, two teams of three skaters each begin simultaneously on opposite sides of the 400-metre oval, skating a total of six laps. Team members often take turns leading, with their teammates close behind to take advantage of lower wind resistance and the clock only stops when all three skaters have crossed the finish line.

When Blondin, Maltais and Weidemann first teamed up at the 2019 world championships, they skated to a surprise fourth-place finish despite one member having zero experience in the discipline and race tactics that they still question