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The Canadian team of Charles Hamelin, Steven Dubois, Pascal Dion and Jordan Pierre-Gilles won gold in the 5000m relay on Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics.
Maxime Laoun also deserves this medal although he was on the sidelines since he had competed in the semi-final.
Dubois will therefore leave Beijing with no less than three medals of each color, including two individual ones.
With this sixth medal, Hamelin joined long track speed skater Cindy Klassen as Canada’s most decorated athletes at the Winter Games. Swimmer Penny Oleksiak is Canada’s most medal-winning Olympic athlete with seven.
The gold medal also allowed Hamelin to join hockey players Caroline Ouellette, Jayna Hefford and Hayley Wickenheiser at the top of Canada’s gold medal column with four.
He is the first male short track speed skater to win a medal at five different Winter Games. Italian Arianna Fontana had become the first short track speed skater to achieve the feat earlier in Beijing.
It was the last day of competition in short track speed skating.
Canadians eliminated in 1500m semi-finals
In the women’s 1,500m event, none of the three Canadians was able to qualify for the final.
Kim Boutin had controlled her quarter-final wave well to finish first and qualify for the next stage.
In the half, she couldn’t carve out a place in the top two of her heat, nor did she get the best time among the other skaters worth the opportunity to be drafted.
Courtney Sarault stayed in the top-3 throughout her first race before breaking away completely from the peloton to sail rather easily towards the semi-finals of her favorite event. However, she couldn’t keep up with the furious pace that was imposed in the half, notably with the Olympic record of Korean Choi Min Jeong in 2:16.83.
Danaé Blais was the other Quebecer in the running but she was eliminated in the quarters. Two laps from the end, she attempted a risky overtake that caused her to fall and slide towards the wall.
