Langelaar named rising star

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This article was published 26/06/2017 (3026 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

St. James will always be home, but Tyson Langelaar is taking his speedskating career to Calgary, Alta. this summer.

The athlete recently graduated from Westwood Collegiate and is looking forward to working with an older and more competitive group in Calgary, but he will leave Manitoba with one more accolade to add to the family trophy case.

Langelaar was named Speed Skating Canada’s Rising Star at the organization’s 2017 awards gala on June 9.

“I was pretty honoured because we have a pretty good list of previous winners,” he said. “The history of winners means a lot… I think it’s usually just based off performance, and I skated well besides junior worlds so I think it’s based off performances throughout the whole year.”

Langelaar returned from February’s junior world speedskating championships in Helsinki, Finland, with four medals this year—bronze in the 1,500- and 1,000-metre races and all-round competition, and silver in team sprint.

He said the Helsinki competition marked the biggest step of his skating career so far.

“Being on the big stage, I tried to raise my game, not just on the ice but off, and trying to get as focused as possible, and it turned out pretty well. Junior worlds was the highlight of the year,” he said.

Between then and now, Langelaar competed in the last Canada Cup event, which he says wasn’t a huge meet but a “good meet to finish off.”

Langelaar established personal bests of 1:10 in the 1,000-metre race and 6:39 in the 5,000 metres.

Langelaar will head to Calgary in mid- July to train with the Oval Program at the University of Calgary while attending school. For now, he continues to train with Team Manitoba.

“It’s going to be easy to transition because I’ve done training camps with the coach last summer and then I have a lot of friends and friendly rivals so I know the whole team already, so it’s going to be a pretty easy fit to get there and start training, so I’m excited.”

He says he’s looking forward to skating with an older team, new coaches and longer training season.

“I have a few people to chase and push myself further so I think the training aspect will be better, and racing will be pretty much the same,” Langelaar said. “I think the hours for sure will be different because Calgary has indoor, so you can start skating right in July, compared to having a three-month long track season in Winnipeg with outdoor.”

Langelaar says he’s hoping to make it back to junior worlds again and he’s looking ahead to Olympic trials, as well.