Blondin turns her speed skating fortunes

In contrast, Blondin went into this past weekend’s national team trials with very little pressure on her since she had guaranteed herself a spot on the Canadian national development team thanks to an eighth-place showing overall at the Junior Worlds, held Jan. 9-11 in Sherbrooke, Que. “Last year was really, really hard on me,” notes Blondin, a Gloucester Concordes skater who moved to Montreal to train at the national short-track centre. “Last year was probably the worst year I’ve ever been through – getting disqualified, I kept falling – and the whole change. It was really a year to adapt to Montreal.”

The extra training took a toll on Blondin – from eight hours on ice per week at the Bob MacQuarrie arena to a twice-a-day, six-days-a-week schedule at the rink by Olympic Stadium. It didn’t help that she was ill and had to sleep almost 18 hours a day at times, but her body has now come back stronger in the face of the added burden.

Blondin also lived over an hour away from the centre by bus and metro, but now she has a place next door that comes in very handy on mornings that often start well before 7 a.m. at the arena. “Sometimes I’d lose focus and start crying,” says the 18-year-old, noting it was tough only coming home about once a month. “But now it’s not that bad – I got used to it. Last year, I was really bad with that, but this year it’s only happened to me once.”

It’s helped that the Canadian junior girls have established a closer bond now that they’ve been together for longer – not to mention the support of “Houston.” “It’s a lot easier for me this year because I got a parrot and I’ve been wanting one for a very long time,” Blondin laughs. “She’s like my best friend.”

Last year, speed skating wasn’t going very well for Blondin, and it wasn’t a piece of cake to finish her high school courses at the same time either. Now she’s taking Algonquin College correspondence courses in geology (earning an 89 per cent grade in her last course), and has devoted a “fighter” spirit to both speed skating and studying. “I can’t give up – it’s something I can’t do,” Blondin says. “I came up to my coaches a few times last year and said, ‘I’m quitting – I’m sick of this!’ and then the next day, I’d be there training.”

Blondin’s perseverance paid off and translated into an eighth-place finish overall (a combination of three distances – 500 metres, 1,000 m and 1,500 m) at the World Juniors in front of an audience from her home country. “It was really cool – the whole crowd was cheering for us,” says Blondin, whose top result was fifth in the 1,000 m. “Every time we’d do an inside pass or a move, they would just start screaming. You couldn’t even hear yourself skate. It was crazy – I enjoyed it so much.”

Once the individual races were over, Blondin went on to win silver with the Canadian relay team – her second Junior Worlds medal to go with a relay bronze from first competition. The performance of all the Canadian girls made them realize how strong they actually are compared with the rest of the world, Blondin notes. “We were all super excited,” says Blondin, who placed 11th overall at the national team trials despite not competing in the 1,000 metre. “It’s completely different this year. Everything’s going well now.”