UCalgary alum wins second Olympic speedskating gold

Through 10 days of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, Isabelle Weidemann, BSc’23, was feeling a little let down.

The sentiment was understandable. After all, at the last Olympics — 2022 in Beijing — she played a starring role, earning three speedskating medals and serving as Canada’s flag bearer at the closing ceremonies.

This time, though, Weidemann placed fifth in two of her best races, the women’s 3,000 and 5,000 metres, at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.

But she managed to stay optimistic. In the leadup to the women’s team pursuit — the event that she and teammates Ivanie Blondin and Valérie Maltais won in 2022 — Weidemann was stoked.

“We’re excited to empty the tank, see what’s in there, fight to be on top of the podium,” she told The Canadian Press. “There’s definitely some fire. I feel the 3,000 was a bit disappointing, the 5,000 was a bit disappointing. So, I’m like, ‘Ah, let’s rip it out.’”

And rip it out they did

On Feb. 17, Weidemann, Blondin and Maltais edged the Dutch team to once again claim gold, Canada’s third of the Games.

“We’re a little bit in shock, I think,” Weidemann, one of many UCalgary students and alumni competing at the Olympics, said minutes after standing on the podium, embracing her teammates and singing during the playing of O Canada. “I’m so proud of all the work that the three of us have done over the last four years. We’re a very different team, I think, than in Beijing. We’ve overcome a lot and built this team. I’m just so proud.”

In the head-to-head format, teams of three skaters stride together in single file around the track for six laps. Fastest group wins. Canada’s trio — with Weidemann, a 6-foot-2 powerhouse, skating in the front — easily beat the American entry in the semifinal earlier in the day, while the Netherlands eliminated Japan.

A historic contest

That set up a classic showdown — Canada, the defending Olympic champion, versus the Netherlands, the two-time defending world champion.

“After the semifinals, we weren’t even talking about silver,” said Weidemann, who majored in natural sciences at UCalgary. “We knew we had one more (race) to go — we’ve got a job to do, still.”

Trailing in the early stages of the gold-medal final, the Canadians steadily worked to close the gap. Blondin, admitting she peeked at the venue’s score clock during the action, noticed the moment her team nudged into the lead.

“As soon as we got ahead, the whole crowd just started (cheering), and I was, ‘All right, we got this.’ I was pretty confident,” Blondin, who, like Maltais and Weidemann, has trained extensively at UCalgary’s Olympic Oval, told the CBC. “We were calm, collected. We knew what we had to get done and we just did it.”

It was the first time a country had defended its Olympic title in the women’s team pursuit since Germany’s success the 2006 and 2010 Games. 

“Man, back-to-back gold, I’m pumped,” Maltais, who also picked up bronze in the women’s 3,000 metres, also told the CBC. “Getting to celebrate that race with the Canadian fans in the stands, it was fun. And I’m sure it’s going to keep being fun.”