St-Gelais wins women’s 500 at World Cup
Posted February 13, 2011 2:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
MOSCOW — Marianne St-Gelais continued her dominance on the short-track speedskating World Cup circuit.
The 20-year-old from St-Felicien, Que., won the women’s 500 metres on Sunday before adding silver as part of Canada’s relay team.
It’s been almost a year since St-Gelais won silver in the 500 at the Vancouver Olympics. She’s taken gold in every race she’s entered at the distance this season.
“I’m really happy with the win,” said St-Gelais. “I was second on the line and managed to get in front right away. I know what I’m able to do in the 500 metres and I think other skaters know it too, and it’s nice that I can do it time and time again.”
China narrowly edged out Canada in the women’s 3,000-metre relay. Italy was third.
Marie-Eve Drolet of Laterriere, Que., Jessica Hewitt of Kamloops, B.C., and Edmonton’s Jessica Gregg joined St-Gelais on the team.
“We’re happy with our relay,” said St-Gelais. “We wanted to follow the Chinese and hoped to beat them, we had similar times in the semifinal so we knew we could be close, which is exactly what we did.”
In the men’s relay event, the Canadian team of Francois Hamelin (Ste-Julie, Que.), Olivier Jean (Lachenaie, Que.), Guillaume Blais-Dufour (Quebec City) and Michael Gilday (Yellowknife, N.W.T.) took bronze behind Netherlands and France.
Olympic 1,000 champion Charles Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que., was leading a semifinal heat but fell with one lap to go. South Korea’s Noh Jinkyu went on to take that event.
That fall knocked him out of the relay event.
“The German skater also fell and hit me pretty hard,” said Charles Hamelin. “With a sore neck, elbow and (tailbone), it was better for me to end my day there.”
The final stop of the six-leg World Cup is next weekend in Dresden, Germany.
