Ivanie Blondin victimized by mayhem of mass start as Canada finishes off the podium

It might have been Blondin's best shot at a medal, because the mass start is made for the aggressive style she honed in short track

Japan's Ayano Sato (left) and Canada's Ivanie Blondin fall in the women's mass start semifinal at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Feb. 24.Mladen Antonov / AFP / Getty Images

GANGNEUNG — When the 3,000 metres and the 5,000 metres and the team pursuit came and went and Canadian speed skater Ivanie Blondin was in the mix but not on the podium, she held it together for one last chance on the final day of Olympic competition.

Her best chance, some would say, because the mass start is made for her aggressive style, which was honed in the crazy, physical sphere of short track. What’s more, she won the mass start world title in 2016, and finished second in 2015. The spectacle of tactics and mayhem was making its Olympic debut here and she was a contender.

But there were 12 skaters in her semifinal on Saturday night inside a raucous Olympic venue, and even on a massive, 400-metre oval, that many bodies and blades, elbows and knees practically guarantees jockeying and carnage.

Sure enough, there were falls aplenty as everyone chased medals. Blondin, a 27-year-old from Ottawa who prides herself on being able to stay on her feet while all around her other women wilt, was a victim.

“I had a little bit of a slip around the apex in that turn and the Japanese (skater) that was behind me kind of just tossed me out of the way and I ended up falling because I just lost balance,” she said. “That happens, right, like you see it in short track all the time and you see it in long track, too, in the mass start.”

Ivanie Blondin (right) falls in the mass start semifinal on Feb. 24. Petr David Josek / AP

Blondin was distraught, entirely gutted because you just don’t always see it coming. It actually appeared she put her left skate on the inside of the track and spun out of control, taking not only Ayano Sato of Japan out of the race, but Annouk van der Weijden of the Netherlands as well. The plucky Dutch skater got back on her feet to make the final. Sato was injured and could not continue.

“As I was trying to get the points, Canadian athlete lost her balance and fell and the consequence is I fell with her,” Sato said through an interpreter. “I have pain in my left elbow and I am really, really disappointed.

“I was not upset with her at all. Had I made an adjustment a bit earlier I could not have fallen with her.”

Blondin got back up, but trailed the pack so badly that the single point she earned in the first sprint section of the race was not enough to ensure her advancement into the final. Too many women ahead of her also gained points from the mid-race sprints. The first three one-lap sprints award five, three and one point to the top three finishers. The final sprint offers 60, 40 and 20.

Canada’s Keri Morrison, a 26-year-old from Burlington, Ont., made it through the other semifinal in great shape, gaining valuable placement points from two of the four sprints.

Canada’s Keri Morrison (right) skates in the mass start semifinal at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Feb. 24. Mladen Antonov / AFP / Getty Images

But she faded in a strangely contested final and finished 12th. The Estonian skater Saskia Alusalu went out by herself early and tried to outlast the peloton.

“She’s done it before on the World Cup stage twice, I think. It’s nothing new for me or the girls, I think,” said Morrison. “It was just a matter of reeling her in and when we were going to reel her in, hopefully.”

It happened, all right. They reeled her in with fewer than three laps to go. Because she had won three of the sprint segments of the 16-lap race, Alusalu was elevated to fourth position, though she crossed the line much further back. (Gold went to Nana Takagi who won a dash for the finish against Bo-Reum Kim of South Korea, who took silver, and Irene Schouten of the Netherlands, who claimed bronze.)

Yes, it’s a weird little race, the mass start.

Morrison didn’t try for sprint points at all in the final, since they are essentially meaningless with medals awarded to the first three skaters over the line at the end of the race.

“I felt really good. I stuck to my race plan. I was saving myself for the end,” said Morrison. “It didn’t work out that I was with the final pack at the end, but I raced to the final as if that pack I was with was the medallists, so I’m really proud of my results.”

Blondin also wanted to emphasize that while she was obviously disappointed not to make it onto a podium at these Games, she was proud of her overall performance.

“A lot of people don’t see my results as being positive, which is really unfortunate, and the press as well,” said Blondin. “It’s unfortunate because finishing sixth, fifth and fourth, I think, is a great accomplishment. Yeah, it’s not a medal, but I think it’s something to be proud of.”

In the men’s final, 33-year-old Oliver Jean of Repentigny, Que, finished 14th.

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