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Valérie Maltais believes she possesses the proper mindset for a 1,500-metre race on the oval: Get excited to hurt and grind out three-and-three-quarter laps.
Who would doubt the speed skater, making her fourth Olympic appearance, with five medal performances?
Maltais, fresh off her second straight Winter Games gold in women’s team pursuit three days earlier in Milan, was aware of Friday’s “stacked” field in the women’s 1,500 final.
There was retiring Brittany Bowe of the United States with 16 years of experience, 91 World Cup medals, six world titles (one in the 1,500) and four world records (one in the 500). There was Ragne Wiklund of Norway with three World Cup bronze finishes this season and two medals at these Olympics. And Japan’s Miho Takagi, the world record holder, with bronze skates in the 500, 1,000 and team pursuit in Milan.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know, just going to skate a strong race and see,’” Maltais told CBC Sports, long after reaching the finish line in one minute 54.40 seconds in the 10th of 15 pairings at Milano Speed Skating Stadium, where she bumped Femke Kok of the Netherlands from lead position.
Before Takagi took the line in the final pairing, Maltais was text messaging with her husband and thinking she would finish with bronze or fourth.
“I knew that my last lap I skated strong, and this is why I won [my pairing over Belgian athlete Isabelle van Elst],” Maltais said. “My heart was pumping out of my chest. Is [my bronze position] going to hold? I told my coach, ‘I don’t think it’s going to hold.’”
WATCH | Maltais earns her 3rd Olympic medal in Milan:
Canada’s Valérie Maltais collects another Olympic bronze for her 3rd medal at Milano Cortina 2026
Valérie Maltais of La Baie, Que, claimed the 1,500-metre speed skating bronze medal on Friday, to go along with her gold medal in team pursuit and 3,000m bronze medal.’I think I skated strong … on the big stage’
It held, with Maltais holding off fourth-placed Bowe by 3-10ths of a second.
“I was waiting with Ragne and was like, ‘Man, it’s a surprise.’ I think I skated strong, a solid race on the big stage,” said Maltais, whose bronze in the 3,000 on Feb 7 was Canada’s first in Milan. “That’s where you need to [perform].”
It was Maltais’s fourth time racing the 1,500 at the Winter Games. Before Saturday, her best finish was sixth 12 years ago in Sochi, Russia.
She earned Canada’s fourth speed skating medal and 16th overall in Italy, with Laurent Dubreuil a bronze medallist in the men’s 500.
Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong of the Netherlands won her first Olympic gold in 1:54.09 and Wiklund went 1:54.15 for her second silver and third medal at these Games.
WATCH | Maltais — ‘My heart was pumping out of my chest’ seconds before earning bronze:
Canada’s Maltais after capturing her 3rd medal, ‘my 1st medal in the 1,500 metre, this is insane’
3,000-metre and the 1,500-metre bronze medals, along with gold in the team pursuit now gives Valérie Maltais of La Baie, Que, three Olympic medals at Milano Cortina 2026.
“It feels so incredible, it’s so nice to be standing here,” Rijpma-de Jong told reporters. “This medal means everything to me. I already had [Olympic] silver and bronze medals, but Olympic gold was the one still missing. I’m so proud I did it. It can’t get any better. It’s insane.
Dutch win 5th straight Olympic 1,500m
“Doing it in the 1,500 metres not even my best distance, is crazy. It’s surreal.”
The Dutch have won this race at five consecutive Olympics, dating to 2010 in Vancouver.
Rijpma-de Jong, the 2023 world champion in the 1,500, was supported raucously by thousands of her closest friends in the stands. They roared when she was introduced before her heat. And again when the video boards showed her ahead of Wiklund. And, most ear-splittingly, when Rijpma-de Jong crossed the line and the number “1” appeared by her name to signify she’d taken the lead.
In her career, Rijpma-de Jong’s Olympic haul includes one gold, two silver and three bronze.
Takagi, who has held the world record of 1:49.83 since 2019, was sixth in 1:54.865.
The door opened for her to claim her first Olympic 1,500 crowd when Joy Beune of the Netherlands came up short at trials and did not qualify for the distance at these Games.
Takagi, 31, had three podiums in five 1,500 races on this year’s World Cup circuit on the way to her fifth straight season title.
WATCH | Maltais all smiles receiving her 3rd medal in Milan:
Canadian Valérie Maltais receives her 1500-metre speed skating bronze medal at Milano Cortina 2026
Bronze medals in the 3,000-metre and the 1500-metre races, along with gold in the team pursuit gives Valérie Maltais of La Baie, Que, three Olympic medals at Milano Cortina 2026.
Ottawa’s Ivanie Blondin was eighth of 29 skaters in 1:54.93 on Saturday. The 35-year-old was also eighth at last year’s world championships and eighth in the World Cup standings this season.
In December, Blondin collected bronze at a World Cup event in the Netherlands, her first medal in the 1,500 since 2020.
Béatrice Lamarche, from Quebec City, placed 17th (1:57.65) coming off a seventh-place finish in the women’s 500 on Sunday.
The 27-year-old Olympic rookie’s fifth-place result in the 1,000 on Feb. 9 was Canada’s best in the distance since the 2010 Vancouver Games, where Christine Nesbitt won gold and Kristina Groves was fourth.