Canadian speedskater Valérie Maltais wins bronze for country’s 1st medal at Olympics

MILAN – Valérie Maltais was cursing under her breath.

The Canadian long-track speedskater sat second in the women’s 3,000-metre race at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics following a solid twirl around the oval. The biggest issue? Four elite competitors she knows well had yet to race.

“I was sitting there, and I was like, ‘(Expletive), I’m gonna be fourth or fifth,” said the 35-year-old taking part in her fifth and surely final Olympics. “I just didn’t know.”

Maltais has sacrificed a lot, in both life and sport. 

After the remaining athletes, including teammate Isabelle Weidemann, crossed the finish line Saturday, the La Baie, Que., product was third. The individual achievement she so desperately craved was finally in her grasp.

Maltais won bronze with a time of three minutes 56.93 seconds to give Canada its first medal at the Games, and the veteran skater her first individual Olympic podium.

Italy’s Francesca Lollobrigida won gold on home soil in a Games-record 3:54.28, while Norway’s Ragne Wiklund took silver in 3:56.54. 

“I was really aware in that race,” Maltais said. “I was really aware to what I was doing.”

And what she’s been doing over the last two years is give herself to the sport for one last kick.

Maltais won silver in the 3,000-metre relay in short track at the 2014 Sochi Olympics before deciding to pivot to long track after a podium-less 2018. She went onto add a gold to her trophy case in the women’s team pursuit at the 2022 Beijing Games alongside Weidemann and Ivanie Blondin.

But Maltais wanted a medal all on her own, and after moving from Calgary to Quebec City with her husband, retired speedskater Jordan Belchos, she was re-energized.

The owner of one silver and two bronze medals in the 3,000 this season in World Cup action, Maltais was going to give herself two years in the Olympic cycle to see if that individual was a realistic goal. 

After those 24 months, she believed it was — and pushed even harder. 

“Are we comfortable with that?” Maltais said of her conversations with Belchos, who is back in Canada finishing a master’s degree. “We want to build a family and it’s a decision that I could not take by myself. It was important to have my husband on board. And I’m lucky enough that he has been an athlete.”

There were, however, some doubts when Maltais was in the thick of it. The couple have also been apart for long stretches.

“I started this new protocol of training, he was at some point like, ‘Oh, you’re really doing that?'” she recalled. “But at some point he was seeing the improvement. (Friday) night, I was talking with him and he was telling me that he was proud of me for all the sacrifices and everything that I did, and taking all the risks. 

“It made him question, ‘Should I have taken some risk myself? Because it was definitely worth it seeing you perform now.’ It just gave me wings today, showing up to the line, and being like, ‘Man, I’m in the best shape. Let’s go bring it on.'”

Weidemann, who won bronze in the 2022 event, skated in the final pair Saturday, but couldn’t beat Maltais’s time and settled for fifth. The 30-year-old Ottawa native cried tears of joy for her teammate, just as Maltais had four years earlier in Beijing.

“A phenomenally hard worker, and she is so curious about how to go faster,” said Weidemann, Canada’s closing ceremony flag-bearer in Beijing for her three-medal performance. “We’ve been teammates — very, very close teammates — for a very long time. I’m just so proud of her. She has worked so, so hard for the achievements that she’s had this year, but also for this Olympic medal.”

Laura Hall of Salmon Arm, B.C., finished 13th out of 20 skaters in her Olympic debut at age 22. 

Canadian coach Muncef Ouardi said Maltais put up an impressive showing in her heat alongside Lollobrigida, especially after the Italian provided an unexpected and potentially jarring late surge after not making any World Cup podiums at that distance this season to win her country’s first gold medal at these Games.

“We tried to go another level,” Ouardi said of his skater’s last 12 months. “She was driven by that.” 

Maltais, who was nervous Friday night before waking up calm following a 9 1/2-hour sleep, truly locked into her program in May, and was OK with being selfish.

“I’ve been really intense, and I think it was worth it,” she said. “I was just like, ‘I’m gonna show up on the line on Feb. 7, and I’m gonna be the most ready, the most in-shape of my career. At 35 years old, I cannot go to bed late, I cannot drink, and I cannot eat whatever I want. 

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“It felt somehow easy when you have an objective.”

Maltais, who had her parents in the stands, had a choice to make with her career at a crossroads.

“I’m gonna keep going,” she told herself. “I think I’m getting an individual medal this time.”

After all that sweat and sacrifice, Maltais was right. Now she has the hardware dangling from her neck to prove it.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 7, 2026.