{"id":460405,"date":"2026-02-07T20:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/460405\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T20:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:55:08","slug":"valerie-maltais-wins-team-canadas-first-medal-of-milano-cortina-2026-in-womens-3000m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/460405\/","title":{"rendered":"Val\u00e9rie Maltais wins Team Canada&#8217;s first medal of Milano Cortina 2026 in women&#8217;s 3000m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFebruary 7, 2026\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"77\" height=\"96\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770497708_498_Nichols_Paula-e1667487272716.jpg\" class=\"avatar avatar-96 photo wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/wp-content\/themes\/canadianolympiccommittee\/img\/team-canada-icons\/team-canada-profile-share-red.svg\" alt=\"Sharing icon\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/team-canada\/valerie-maltais\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Val\u00e9rie Maltais <\/a>has won Team Canada\u2019s first medal of the <a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/games\/milano-cortina-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milano Cortina 2026<\/a> Olympic Winter Games. <\/p>\n<p>She skated to bronze in the women\u2019s 3000m at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium with her time of 3:56.93.<\/p>\n<p>Maltais was in the third to last pairing, alongside Italy\u2019s Francesca Lollobrigida. With her home fans encouraging her on, Lollobrigida set an Olympic record time of 3:54.28 to win the gold medal. Maltais\u2019 time matched exactly the previous Olympic record that had been set four years ago at Beijing 2022. <\/p>\n<p>In the next pairing, Ragne Wiklund of Norway recorded a time of 3:56.54 to slide in just ahead of Maltais for the silver medal. <\/p>\n<p>This is Maltais\u2019 first individual Olympic medal. At<a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/games\/beijing-2022\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Beijing 2022<\/a>, she won gold in the women\u2019s team pursuit alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/team-canada\/isabelle-weidemann\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Isabelle Weidemann<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/team-canada\/ivanie-blondin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ivanie Blondin<\/a>. That followed her silver medal in the women\u2019s 3000m relay in short track speed skating at Sochi 2014. She was the first Canadian speed skater to ever win Olympic medals in both long track and short track.<\/p>\n<p>This is Canada\u2019s fifth Olympic medal in the women\u2019s 3000m. The previous four were all bronzes, two by<a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/team-canada\/cindy-klassen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Cindy Klassen<\/a> at Salt Lake City 2002 and Turin 2006, followed by <a href=\"https:\/\/olympic.ca\/team-canada\/kristina-groves\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kristina Groves<\/a> at Vancouver 2010 and Weidemann at Beijing 2022. <\/p>\n<p>Weidemann finished fifth in Saturday\u2019s race with a time of 3:59.24.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"February 7, 2026 Val\u00e9rie Maltais has won Team Canada\u2019s first medal of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,136181,188235,188236,14471,188237,82,13543,134306],"class_list":{"0":"post-460405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-isabelle-weidemann","11":"tag-long-track-speed-skating","12":"tag-milan-medal","13":"tag-milano-cortina-2026","14":"tag-speed-skating-long-track","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-team-canada","17":"tag-valerie-maltais"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}