Keywords Olympic Games, Winter Sports

Wotherspoon, Jeremy
Jeremy Wotherspoon silver medallist in long track skating at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games (courtesy Canadian Olympic Association/Mike Redwood).

Bédard, Eric
Eric Bédard, winnier of a short-track bronze medal at the Nagano Olympic Games (courtesy Canadian Olympic Association/photo by F. Scott Grant).

Origins
The roots of ice skating date back over 1000 years to the frozen canals and waterways of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where men laced animal bones to their footwear and glided across frozen lakes and rivers.

By the 1600s, travelling on blades between villages had become a useful and enjoyable means of transportation for the Dutch. Surprisingly, credit for the first pair of all-iron skates goes to a Scotsman, who invented them in 1592. The iron blade accelerated the spread of speed skating, and in 1642 the Skating Club of Edinburgh was formed. In 1763 the world's first organized speed skating race, which covered a distance of slightly more than 24 km, was held on the Fens in England.

The fledgling sport eventually found its way to North America, where a lighter, sharper and longer all-steel blade was first produced in 1850. In 1889 the Dutch organized the first world championship, with skaters covering 4 distances - 500 m, 1500 m, 5000 m and 10 000 m. The International Skating Union (ISU) was formed in the Netherlands in 1892. By the end of the century the sport had attracted a mass following in many parts of the world.

Canada's first recorded ice skating race took place on the St. Lawrence River in 1854, when three British army officers raced from Montréal to Québec City. Speed skating races became a regular feature of winter life, and by 1887 the Amateur Skating Association of Canada, the young country's first sport association, was formed. In 1887 the first official championship was staged by the Amateur Skating Association of Canada, and in 1894 it became the first non-European body to join the ISU. (The name was changed to the Canadian Amateur Speed Skating Association in 1960, then to Speed Skating Canada in 2000.) In those formative years, speed skating and FIGURE SKATING were both under the auspices of one organization, with the concerns of the speed skaters predominating. Figure skaters did not form their own association until 1939.

Short track and long track are the two types of speed skating competition. The sport of short-track speed skating, characterized by the mass start, originated in Canada and the United States in 1905, with the first known competition to have taken place in 1909. By the 1920s and 1930s crowds regularly packed New York's Madison Square Gardens in anticipation of the thrills and spills that characterize the sport. At the same time, it was gaining popularity in Great Britain, Japan, France, Belgium and Australia. Olympic speed skating, or long track as it is known today, made its debut at the first Winter Olympics in 1924 in Chamonix, France, and has been a highlight of the Games ever since. Early Olympic competition was dominated by the Finns and Norwegians; however, the Americans invariably provided stiff competition.

Speed skating, at the world level, has largely been the preserve of Dutch and Scandinavian skaters. The Russians and Americans have also enjoyed considerable success; the most notable of the Americans, Eric Heiden, won 5 gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics. Canada, however, has also produced many outstanding speed skaters. In 1897 Jack McCulloch of Winnipeg won the ISU world championships held in Montréal. Fred Robson, Gladys Robinson and Lela BROOKS, all of Toronto, were prominent in North American skating competitions and set a number of world records in the first 3 decades of this century. Another prominent skater of that time was Charles I. GORMAN of Saint John. Jean WILSON of Toronto won gold and silver medals at the 1932 Olympics, where women's speed skating was a demonstration event.

From then until the 1970s, Canada's main speed skating achievement was Gordon Audley's bronze medal in the 500 m event at the 1952 Olympics. Twenty-four years later, Cathy Priestner won a silver medal in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1973 Sylvia BURKA became the unofficial world junior women's champion and won the women's world championship in 1976. The following year she won the world sprint championship. For men, Gaëtan BOUCHER of Québec was second only to Heiden in world competition in 1980, and set a world record for the 1000 m event. In the 1984 Olympics at Sarajevo, Boucher stimulated interest in speed skating with 2 gold medals and one bronze. In the same year he won the World Sprint Championships.

Boucher led the Olympic team again in 1988, but he was past his glory and the team was unable to win a medal. Part of the reason for this was the development of short-track racing, particularly in Quebec, where Canada's long tradition of speed skating is strongest. Quebec skaters dominated the 1988 Olympic short-track demonstration events. The men captured bronze in the 5000 m relay and the women won 4 medals.

Sylvie Daigle won gold in the 1500 m event and silvers in the 1000 m and 3000 m. She also led the 3000 m relay team to the bronze medal. Daigle and long-time teammate Nathalie Lambert exchanged the world championships in the intervening years before short-track racing became a full medal sport at the 1992 Games. Daigle suffered a fall in the 500 m but returned to lead the 3000 m relay team, which included Lambert, to the gold medal. Frederic Blackburn, also of Quebec, won silver in the men's 1000 m and was a member of the 5000 m relay team that also won silver.

Canadian success in short-track speed skating continued through the 1990s. At the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Nathalie Lambert added to her medal collection with a silver in the 1000 m event and was also a member of the women's silver-medal-winning team in the 3000 m relay. Marc GAGNON won bronze in the men's 1000 m. In Nagano in 1998 the team was even stronger: gold medals were won by Annie PERREAULT in the 500 m and by the men's relay team (Eric Bedard, Derrick Campbell, François Drolet and Marc Gagnon) in the 5000 m relay. Canada has also seen its long-track speed skaters improve considerably at the world and Olympic levels, something that can be attributed to the effective use of one of the legacies of the XV Olympic Winter Games in Calgary: the Olympic Speed Skating Oval. In 1994 Susan Auch was a silver medallist in the women's 500 m event, a feat she duplicated in 1998. The star of the ice was Catriona LEMAY DOAN, who won gold in the 500 m and silver in the 1000 m. Auch also won bronze in that event. Jeremy WOTHERSPOON was a silver medallist in the men's 500 m, with Kevin Overland winning bronze.

The 1998-99 season was very successful, as the athletes continued to do well on the international scene. Jeremy Wotherspoon won the overall World Cup titles over 500 m and 1000 m and finished 1st overall at the World Sprint Championships. Michael Ireland finished 3rd overall in the 500 m World Cup final classification. Catriona Lemay Doan once again proved that her success is not due to chance: She finished 2nd at the World Sprint Championships and 1st and 3rd, respectively, for the 500 m and 1000 m at both the overall World Cup standing and World Single Distance Championships.

During the 1999-2000 season, Canadian speed skaters showed that they would be serious contenders for medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games. Jeremy Wotherspoon repeated his last season achievement to finish 1st overall in both the 500 m and 1000 m at the World Cup and to win the World Sprint Championships. He also finished 3rd in the 500 m at the World Single Distance Championships. Michael Ireland finished 3rd overall at the World Cup for the 500 m and finished 2nd at the World Sprint Championships behind Jeremy Wotherspoon, becoming vice-champion. He also finished 2nd in the 500 m and 3rd in the 1000 m at the World Single Distance Championships. Catriona Lemay Doan finished 3rd in the 500 m at the same competition.

Overall, Salt Lake 2002 proved to be the most successful Olympic Games for Canadian speed skaters. They won a total of 8 Olympic medals. In the men's events, short-track skater Marc Gagnon won gold in the 500 m, gold in the 5000 m relay with teammates Jonathan Guilmette, François-Louis Tremblay and Mathieu Turcotte, and bronze in the 1500 m. As a result of these wins, Gagnon became the most decorated Canadian Winter Olympian of all time. Jonathan Guilmette won silver in the 500 m and Matheiu Turcotte won bronze in the 1000 m. An unfortunate fall in the first round of the 500 m left the favourite, long-track skater Jeremy Wotherspoon, out of medal contention. He was unable to achieve higher than 13th place in the 1000 m held only days later. The women long-track skaters added to the medal count with Catriona LeMay Doan's gold in the 500 m, Cindy Klassen's bronze in the 3000 m and Clara HUGHES's bronze in the 5000 m. In short-track skating, the relay team of Isabelle Charest, Marie-Eve Drollet, Amelie Goulet-Nadon and Alanna Kraus won bronze in the 3000m relay. Hughes had the honour of being the first Canadian athlete to win a medal at both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. In 1996 at Atlanta, Hughes won 2 bronze medals for cycling.

Auch, Susan
Susan Auch with the silver medal that she won at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games (courtesy Canadian Olympic Association/photo by Mike Ridewood).

Boucher, Gaetan
Canada's greatest speed skater, Boucher won two gold medals at the 1984 Olympic Games (Canapress Photo Services).

Daigle, Sylvie
Sylvie Daigle (photo by F. Scott Grant/Canadian Sport Images).

Klassen, Cindy
Speed skater Cindy Klassen competes at the 2006 Torino Olympics, ultimately winning a gold medal, two silvers and two bronzes. She is the first Canadian to win 5 medals in a single Olympics (courtesy CP Archives).

Hughes, Clara
Speed skater Clara Hughes following her gold medal performance in the 5000m event. Hughes is the first Canadian to win a medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games (courtesy CP Archives).

Author J. THOMAS WEST Revised: ROCH PILON

Suggested Reading
J. Hurdis, Speed Skating in Canada - 1854-1981: A Chronological History (1981).

Links to Other Sites
Speed Skating Canada
Official website of Speed Skating Canada.

Canadian Olympians
The "Canadian Olympians" website offers a searchable images database of Canadian athletes at the Olympics, from the early 1900s through 2002. From Library and Archives Canada.

Skate Canada
Catch the latest news about Skate Canada programs. This site also chronicles the history of skating in Canada and profiles members of Skate Canada’s Hall of Fame.

Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport
Born out of a landmark merger between the Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport and Fair Play Canada, the CCES is founded on the principles of fair play and drug-free sport

Catriona LeMay Doan
The website for Catriona LeMay Doan, speed skater and two-time Olympic Gold medalist.

TSN
Catch the latest sports news and stats at the website for TSN, a subsidiary of CTVglobemedia.