First, just a little something I want to say about last week's relay final.  I did not see anywhere on the 'net that we fell with 1 lap to go in the final.  Mathieu was taking speed to attempt a pass in the last lap, but fell while taking some speed.  Fortunately, Francois-Louis was fast enough to touch Mathieu and finish the relay in front of the USA for the bronze.

 

Ok, now today...

Just finished the first day of the weekend in Korea, my only day that I skate individually (1500m).  The ice here is not very fast as you can see with those times.  It's a hard ice to skate on:  a lot of grip but there's no glide at all.  But it's the same for everyone.

 

We had a hard week of training again.  Guy (our coach) is making us work a lot ... very unusual before a World Cup, but like I said last week, it's gonna pay off in Europe.  I was feeling better than last week anyway.  I did not feel good in my 2 first rounds, but in the semi I felt I had good legs finnally.  But unfortunatley, with 7-8 laps to go, I was in 2nd and Li Jiajun was following me too close at the begining of the corner and caught my blades from behind.  We both fell.  Then I could not do anything....  But they decided to advance me to the final because of that.  They did not disqualify Li Jiajun because he did not try to pass me or anything.  He just hit my blades from behind.  Just bad timing I guess... So I hope that answers the questions that some were having on that situation.

 

Then the final...

We were all the 3 Canadians in the final.  At one point, the 2 Koreans were in front and were not going very fast.  I did not want to let that race go that way, so I made an attempt to go in front from the outside.  They reacted, and accelerated ... that was just enough for me, I went into 3rd position ... then Mathieu and Charles passed me by the inside.  I knew they had better legs than me today so it was better if it was them being in a position to try to pass the Koreans, but Anh was too strong, Mathieu was able to pass the other Korean (Lee) to take the Silver ... Apolo was DQ'd on an attempt to pass Lee (Korean) on the last staight.

Then we won our heat of the relay...

Everything went smooth, but the ice was pretty bad.  Now I just have the relay to skate this weekend ... and cheer for my teamates in the next 2 days. ;-)

 

Bye for now,
Jonathan