Team Alberta’s Brooklyn McDougall is quickly becoming a household name at the 2019 Canada Winter Games.
After winning gold to open the Games Saturday, the 20-year-old picked up two more medals on Sunday in long track speedskating.
On another bitterly cold and windy day at Setters Place, her first medal came in the female 500-metre race. She earned gold in a two-race total time of 1:20.74, four seconds faster than Rose Laliberté-Roy of Québec.
“I just kept it simple and skated the way I’ve been skating. It turned out amazing. The 500 was really what I was looking forward to for the Canada Games and it couldn’t have gone any better,” McDougall said.
“I felt like that was one of my strongest races I’ve done technically and tactically as well. Just focusing on keeping myself low so the wind doesn’t affect me as much. It was an amazing race.”
McDougall followed that up with an afternoon silver in the female Team Pursuit. She said earning the medal as a group was extra special. Anna Bourgeois, Kayla McNeely and Cassidy Peterson made up the rest of the silver medal-winning Alberta team.
“I love the Team Pursuit, it’s so much fun because it brings in such a completely different element,” McDougall added.
“Skating with the girls, it is such a different energy. When you cross the line together, it’s an incredible feeling.”
The Team Pursuit features three or four skaters, skating six laps in tandem in the female competition and eight on the male side. The team’s time is determined by the third skater crossing the finish line.
Not to be outdone, the Alberta boys also made the podium in front of the home province supporters. They managed to capture gold and collected top prize with a Canada Winter Games record time of 4:05.41. They finished 11 seconds ahead of Québec, who earned silver.
“We practice our race plan in the weeks prior and I think we executed it really well,” said Team Alberta skater Paul Coderre.
“One of our teammates was going to lead the first two and a half laps as hard as he could and peel off and leave the rest of us to finish it up. We did it really well and I’m really proud of the team.”
Jousha Hathaway of Medicine Hat, who was part of the Team Pursuit gold, said when the gold medal was presented to them by speed skating legend Catriona Le May Doan, it was a surreal feeling.
“It was crazy, greatest feeling in the world honestly,” Hathaway said.
“To do it as a team, we’ve been practicing for a couple weeks, great feeling. I think we all had the same goal going in execution was perfect.”
Mark Halyk and Kaleb Muller also helped Alberta to gold in the Team Pursuit.
Alberta is taking a liking to the long track ice at Great Chief Park, with a huge haul of medals through the first few days of competition.
“We’re just proud to represent our province well,” concluded Coderre.
Ontario won bronze in the male Team Pursuit with a time of 4:16.54.
In the female Team Pursuit, Québec won gold in 3:28.70 and B.C. was third in 3:44.99.
Tyson Langelaar of Ontario won gold (1:14.73) in the male 500m, Québec’s Cédrick Brunet won silver (1:15.27) and Québec Antonie Gagnon-Lamarche won bronze (1:15.62). Véronique Déry won bronze in the female 500m.
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