A great escape by Courtney Sarault propelled Canada to its first silver medal at Milano Cortina 2026.
Sarault somehow managed to avoid a collision involving American Corinne Stoddard and Korean Kim Gilli in the short-track speedskating mixed relay semifinal to ensure the Canadians advanced to the four-team Olympic final on Tuesday.
Sarault then joined forces with William Dandjinou, Felix Roussel and Kim Boutin to help Canada strike silver in the first medal event for the sport at these Games.
“Unbelievable,” Sarault, from Moncton, N.B., told CBC Olympics after the final.
“I’m just so proud of this team. We really worked super hard the past month, the past four years, honestly, to achieve something like this. We stayed calm and collected the whole time today.”
The top two from the four-team semifinal — first-place Canada and Belgium — advanced to the final.
A crowd including most members of the Canadian men’s hockey team then watched a dramatic final. Italy won gold, while Belgium beat out China for bronze.
Canada was fourth in the early stages of the final before Sarault’s exchange to Boutin pushed the team to third. Roussel later passed a Chinese skater who stumbled to get Canada into second.
Many skaters said ice conditions were horrible as the temperature rose inside the arena.
“You saw the condition of the ice, everyone was crashing,” Roussel said.
Roussel got the call for the final to replace veteran Steven Dubois, who was off the pace and failed to advance in individual 1,000-metre heats earlier in the session. Dubois and Florence Brunelle, who skated in earlier rounds of the relay, also get silver medals.
“I learned 10 minutes before the final that I was going to do it,” Roussel, who is making his Olympic debut, told CBC Olympics. “I was like, OK this is a big challenge. But the team was there for me and I was there for them and we achieved something.”
For Boutin, it was her fifth career Olympic medal.
“For us, it just means the world,” she said.
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William Dandjinou, the best men’s short-tracker in the world the past two years, is off to a great start in his Olympic debut. He has the possibility of tying a Canadian record with five medals at a single Olympics.
It is Canada’s third medal overall at the Games, following bronze medals by speedskater Valerie Maltais and freestyle skier Megan Oldham.
Canada finished fourth in the mixed team relay in the last Olympics, in 2022.
