Veteran Olympic speedskater Ivanie Blondin dons the short blades again

Hardwired to flee her comfort zone, speedskater Ivanie Blondin has found a new way to push her envelope.

After 13 years on the national long-track team, the 33-year-old from Ottawa will race in the Canadian short-track speedskating championship starting Friday and concluding Sunday in Montreal.

Blondin then has a short turnaround for long-track nationals less than a week later in Calgary.

She's been training in both disciplines, which feature different blades, techniques and demands on the body.

"I like a good challenge, so this is kind of right up my alley," Blondin told The Canadian Press. "I feel like a lot of people are looking at me being like 'you're crazy girl.' But this is what I strive for."

Blondin won Olympic gold in women's team pursuit with teammates Isabelle Weidemann and Valerie Maltais, as well as a women's mass start silver medal in Beijing in 2022.

Faced with another quadrennial of endless laps around Calgary's oval before Milan-Cortina, Italy in 2026, Blondin sought to shake up her competitive life.

"Coming home from the Games and getting a gold and silver, I was like 'hey, what's next? What's the next goal?"' she explained.

Blondin raced in the Canadian women's road cycling championship in both 2022 and 2023. Blondin finished ninth the first year she entered.

She's returning to her short-track roots as Blondin skated with the national team in Montreal before switching to the longer blades and moving to Calgary in 2010.

The long-track team trains short track in the summer while the ice is out of the oval.

"Training was going really, really well," Blondin said. "If you don't try it, you never know what's going to happen and I have nothing to lose."

Combining short-track and long-track workouts in a