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Here is a summary of Canada’s performances on Day 15 of the Beijing Games.
Canadian Ivanie Blondin won the silver medal in the mass start in long track speed skating.
Blondin was edged out by Dutchman Irene Schouten in the final meters of the 16-lap race. The Italian Francesca Lollobrigida completed the podium.
Valérie Maltais took sixth place.
Blondin was among the favorites in the mass start in 2018 at the PyeongChang Games, but fell in the semi-finals.
On the men’s side, Canadians Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu and Jordan Belchos held on as best they could in the final, but the level was raised in the closing laps. Belchos took 13th place as Gélinas-Beaulieu finished 15th
Canadian bobsledders in good shape
The Canadian team made up of Justin Kripps, Ryan Sommer, Cam Stones and Benjamin Coakwell is third in the 4-man after two runs, 38 hundredths of a second behind the leaders.
Germany’s Francesco Friedrich has put himself in a good position to score another double at the Olympics, but his compatriot Johannes Lochner has no intention of letting him win so easily.
Aiming for a fourth Olympic gold medal, Friedrich and his teammates Thorsten Margis, Candy Bauer and Alexander Schueller took the lead in the event.
The German quartet posted a combined time of 1:57.00 for the first two of four runs. Lochner and his teammates Florian Bauer, Christopher Weber and Christian Rasp are only three hundredths of a second behind.
Six times a pilot has won gold in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh competitions at the same Olympic Games: Andreas Ostler (1952), Eugenio Monti (1968), Meinhard Nehmer (1976), Wolfgang Hoppe (1984), Andre Lange (2006) and Friedrich (2018).
No one has done it in two consecutive Games.
Bowman at the foot of the podium
Noah Bowman was the top Canadian in the men’s halfpipe snowboard event, finishing just off the podium. His score of 84.75 earned him fourth place, two points from the bronze medal.
High hopes were pinned on Brendan Mackay, who has been on the podium in all three World Cup events this season and is ranked No. 1 in the world rankings. Unfortunately, he tried everything, but he was unable to achieve a perfect run on his three attempts. He had to settle for a score of 65.50 good for ninth place.
Finally, Simon D’Artois took 10th place with 63.75 points.
It was New Zealander Nico Porteous who won and won gold with a score of 93 points. Two Americans completed the podium. David Wise earned silver with 90.75 points and Alex Ferreira took bronze with 86.75 points.
Their teammate Aaron Blunck, first in qualifying, was unable to repeat his performance and was excluded from the podium.
Wise was the reigning two-time Olympic champion in the event. He had won gold in Sochi in 2014 and in PyeongChang in 2018.
The one who dethroned him, the young Porteous, had won the bronze medal at the age of 16 at the PyeongChang Games.
Olivier Léveillé and Rémi Drolet 27th and 35th
Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov completed a golden hat trick in cross-country skiing at the Beijing Olympics by winning the 30km mass start event.
Quebecer Olivier Léveillé finished in 27th place, in 1:15:54.3 while Rémi Drolet, from British Columbia, took 35th place, in 1:16:27.1.
Bolshunov was part of a group of five athletes who dropped out of the main peloton in the final kilometer. He took the lead on the final climb and completed the race in 1 hour 11 minutes 32.7 seconds.
Ivan Yakimushkin, another representative of the Russian Olympic Committee, finished second, 5.5 seconds behind Bolshunov. Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krueger finished third, seven seconds behind the winner.
