The 2018 canadian short track selections: Summary of a roller coaster week.

Text: Carl Savard Photos: Carl Savard and Patrick Charbonneau

The 2018 Canadian short track speed skating team selections ended yesterday. Even though Samuel Girard and Kim Boutin had already secured their spot on the team, plenty of action was expected on this last day. Summary of a roller coaster week.

Ups and down

The first weekend started with Marianne St-Gelais announcing she would not compete because on an injury. Concussion symptoms showed up after a fall in training the day before. Don’t worry, the selection committee can not pass on the talent and experience of St-Gelais. She has been the best skater in Canada for the last few years. She will be on the team. The first weekend was all about Samuel Girard, Kim Boutin and Steven Dubois. We all knew the first two on the list would be at the top, but Dubois definitely became the talk of the town. Even though the rest of the competition was a roller coaster for the young skater, remember his name. You will hear about him a lot in coming years.

Some athletes we were expecting at the top third of the ranking went through some difficulties from the get go. Sasha Fathoullin had to shake up the rust of last season’s break, but throughout the week he showed the talent is still there. He just needs fine tuning. Courtney Shmyr and Audrey Phaneuf also came up in the top finals during the second weekend with much better performances than during the first one. Pascal Dion who was a locked on choice on our survey before the start of the competition, complicated his course with a few slips but he showed up when it was all or nothing and even though he was not on the ice with the top three yesterday, you can already bet his name will be announced on August 30th when the final list will be out.

Injuries

Other than Marianne St-Gelais who did not start the competition and was replaced by Courtney Sarault, five other athletes could not finish it due to injuries. William Preudhomme, Maxime Laoun, Renée Steenge, Valérie Maltais and François Hamelin. The last two are waiting for a decision from Speed skating Canada to obtain the discretionary fifth place on the team. You can watch Valérie Maltais’s press meeting HERE and learn more about François Hamelin's incident in the article HERE.

The top six

In a lengthy five days competition spread throughout nine, consistency is the key to success and the top six athletes selected for the next Olympic games delivered. Samuel Girard won seven distances out of nine and Kim Boutin did even better with an eight out of nine. Even though Charles Hamelin and Charle Cournoyer’s courses were not perfect, in the end they came up on top finishing second and third respectively. On the women’s side, Jamie MacDonald was a human metronome. She was able to stay calm and use flawless strategies to stay in the game all week long. Kasandra Bradette was able to maintain a high level of competitiveness allowing her to obtain her ticket to Pyeongchang. An emotional Bradette achieving a goal that was always there, but that she lost faith in at times, in her career.

Here are a few words from the post selection press meeting.