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A trio of Canadian women made their Olympic speed skating debuts on Monday in the 1,000 metres, with Béatrice Lamarche leading the way in fifth.
Skating 14th of 15 pairs, she reached the finish in one minute 14.73 seconds to beat Japan’s Rio Yamada. Lamarche was sixth overall through 200 metres, moved to second after 600 and sat third before the final pairing of Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands and Japan’s Miho Takagi, the 2022 Olympic champion in Beijing.
“That [race] was so revealing of who she is as a person, as an athlete,” CBC Sports analyst Anastasia Bucsis said of Lamarche, whose father Benoît was a speed skater at the 1984 and ’88 Olympics. “She’s had a lot of pressure on her shoulders. I think that was near perfect.
“She skated so well. She focused on what was in her control and kept her cool.”
Lamarche’s result was Canada’s best in the event since the 2010 Vancouver Games, where Christine Nesbitt won gold and Kristina Groves was fourth.
Leerdam won the gold medal in 1:12.31, taking the Olympic record from teammate Femke Kok, who went 1:12.59 minutes earlier for silver at Milano Speed Skating Stadium.
Takagi took bronze in 1:13.95, while 37-year-old Brittany Bowe, in her final Games for the United States, was fourth (1:14.55). She still holds the 1:11.61 world record from 2019.
“Everyone saw how hard of a position I had in the last pair, after a super good time. For everyone, it was surreal,” said Leerdam. “It feels very amazing. Just like a cherry on top of my career, basically. It’s amazing. It’s perfect.”
Jutta Leerdam of Netherlands new Olympic record time of 1.12:31 was enough to claim the gold medal at Milano-Cortina 2026.
Bucsis said Leerdom, who captured Olympic silver four years ago and was chasing her first Olympic gold on Monday, is perhaps the biggest speed skater star in years. She also won three of the four World Cup 1,000m races she entered this season.
“She is the real deal,” Bucsis added. “And the amount of pressure that was on her shoulders just shows her character.”
Leerdam’s fiancé, YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, was seated in the second row. When Leerdam was finished her race, she went over to the sideboards in front of where Paul was and paused, crying. She blew a kiss and made a heart shape with her hands while looking up toward him.
There have been three Olympic records in three speed skating races so far in the temporary arena built for the Milan-Cortina Winter Games.
Kok thought hers might stand up.
“I knew it was a good time, so maybe it was enough for gold,” she said. “But she was just a little bit faster. I can only respect that.”
2 more races for Lamarche
Carolina Hiller-Donnelly of Prince George, B.C., and Rose Laliberté-Roy of Sainte-Étienne-de-Lauzon, Que., were 26th (1:17.156) and 27th (1:17.50).
“That was a great Olympic debut for Carolina Hiller-Donnelly. I’m excited to see her in [Saturday’s 500-metre final],” said Bucsis, a two-time Olympic speed skater. “She is so fast, so sharp off the [start] line.”
Last March, Hiller-Donnelly lost her mother Ariadne to cancer. After being named to the Canadian team, the 28-year-old wrote on Instagram: “She wanted this [Olympic experience] for me as much as I wanted it for myself. At the beginning of [this] season, I didn’t think I could compete without her. But she always told me to be brave. So, I showed up to every start line and did it.”
Lamarche, 27, will also race in the women’s 500 and the 1,500 on Feb. 20 alongside teammate Valérie Maltais, who grabbed a bronze medal in the women’s 3,000 on Saturday.
Bronze at World Cup season opener
Lamarche’s breakthrough season began with a pair of Canadian titles in October. The Quebec City skater earned her first individual-distance World Cup medal the following month, taking bronze at the season opener in Salt Lake City.
Her personal best of 1:12.77 was just shy of the 1:12.68 Canadian record, held by Nesbitt since Jan. 28, 2012.
Lamarche’s progress through the 2025-26 campaign is a result of mental work she began four years ago when she was struggling with anxiety and constant comparison with her competitors.
“I had a hard time comparing myself to others,” Lamarche, a medical student at Laval University in Quebec City, said in a recent story on the Canadian Olympic Committee website. “My goal wasn’t necessarily to be good; it was to beat everyone else.”
Her perspective changed while working with a mental performance professional, and Lamarche now has a more calm approach to competition.
“It helped me refocus on myself and stop worrying about what others were doing,” she said. “If others performed well, it didn’t take away from my own performance.”
