Canadian Women Win Silver In Speed Skating Relay

In a matter of minutes, Canada went from bronze to silver.

Canada finished third in the women’s 3,000-metre short-track relay event at the Winter Olympics on Wednesday but was quickly upgraded to second when the winning South Korean speedskaters were disqualified for a rules violation.

Tania Vicent of Laval, Que., Kalyna Roberge of St-Etienne-de-Lauzon, Que., Jessica Gregg of Edmonton and Marianne St-Gelais of St-Felicien, Que., finished in four minutes 9.137 seconds.

“We were with the Chinese and Koreans the entire time,” said Vicent. “We didn’t make any tactical errors, they did. They lost their gold medal, that helped us get our silver medal. It’s just a bonus, because honestly we were so happy with our bronze medal.”

China won in a world-record time of 4:06.610 while the United States got bumped from fourth to third. They finished in 4:14.081.

“We knew that the Koreans and the Chinese would be battling really hard in front of us, so obviously we wanted to be right with them and watch what was going on and try not to get into that trouble and that’s exactly what we did,” said Gregg. “We were right behind them and right on them, but we were able to skate a clean race, so it was really good.”

It’s the second medal for the Canadian short-track team at the Games after St-Gelais won a silver in the women’s 500 metres.

For 34-year-old Vicent, it marks the fourth Olympics where she has won a medal.

“We all agreed we wanted to have the race of our life, no matter the result,” she said. “We’re always going for gold. If you don’t go for the gold, your might get silver, if you go for silver, you might get bronze. If you go for bronze, you might wind up fourth.”

The South Koreans crossed the finish line first Wednesday night, but after several minutes of discussion among the referees, they were disqualified. They were seeking a record fifth consecutive gold in the event.

“I don’t know what the reason is,” said team member Kim Min-Jung. “I don’t have any clue what the referee was saying. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Officials later said they were disqualified for clicking skates with China just after an exchange with five laps to go. Kim was in the lead when her left skate blade hit the right blade of China’s Sun Linlin.

China’s team of Sun, Wang Meng, Zhang Hui and Zhou Yang jumped for joy when they were announced as Olympic champions.

The Chinese team, which set an Olympic record in the semifinals last Saturday, is anchored by the seemingly unstoppable Wang, who easily won gold in the women’s 500 metres a week ago.

Canadian women have won a medal in the relay at every Olympics since the event was introduced in 1992. That was the last time they took gold.

In the 3,000 metres, the skaters complete 27 laps of the circuit. There is no limit to the number of times that skaters can make an exchange, but the final skater must complete the last two laps.

The race can seem like a free-for-all on the ice, with 16 skaters moving at different speeds. The ones in the middle are either resting, or tracking the racing skater to prepare for the next exchange.

Earlier Wednesday, Francois-Louis Tremblay of Montreal set an Olympic record in the men’s 500 metres to advance to the quarter-finals.

Tremblay finished in 41.397 seconds, erasing the record set by teammate Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., only moments before.

Olivier Jean of Lachenaie, Que. also advanced to the quarter-finals.

Vicent, Roberge and Gregg all advanced in the women’s 1,000.

The results were a boost to both Roberge and Gregg, who have been disappointed with their results in previous races at these Games. Gregg just missed the podium a week ago in the women’s 500 metres.