Weekend recap: Canada's short track skaters shine again

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With the winter Olympic sports season really kicking into high gear this past weekend, Canadian athletes had plenty of medal chances on the ice and snow. The results were mixed. Let's recap.

Short track speed skating: Canadians don't miss a beat

Rust never sleeps, but it didn't catch up to Canada's short track skaters after a month-long layoff.

After rocketing to 14 medals (including nine gold) across the first two World Tour meets at Montreal's Maurice Richard Arena, Canadians piled up another seven at the third stop in Beijing over the weekend. Danaé Blais led the way, winning the women's 1,000 metres for her first international solo victory and helping the women's relay team to gold.

Félix Roussel won the men's 1,000m to give Canada three golds for the weekend. Florence Brunelle took silver in the women's 500m for her first career individual medal, and Rikki Doak joined her on that podium with a bronze. Willam Dandjinou crashed in the men's 1,000m but took silver in the 1,500 to stay atop the overall standings. Steven Dubois is in fifth place after picking up a silver in the 500m.

The World Tour continues this weekend in the short track hotbed of Seoul.

Figure skating: Canada shut out at the Grand Prix Final

For the first time since 2019, no Canadians reached the podium at this exclusive event for the top six in each discipline on the Grand Prix tour.

Reigning pairs world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamp would have been a great bet for a medal after winning both of their Grand Prix assignments. But they withdrew due to an illness, leaving Canada with just two entries — both in ice dance.

Marjorie Lajoie and Zachary Lagha placed a respectable fourth after finishing sixth in the regular-season standings, while a fall in their short program doomed Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier to a disappointing fifth-place finish. Gilles and Poirier took silver at the world championships last spring and were ranked third on the Grand Prix tour this season.

American skaters won three of the four events as Madison Chock and Evan Bates (ice dance) and Ilia Malinin (men's) successfully defended their titles while Amber Glenn unseated Japan's Kaori Sakamoto for the women's crown on Saturday. Germany's Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin repeated as pairs champions on Friday. Here's a recap of the final day and here's That Figure Skating Show's Asher Hill and Brenda Irving breaking it all down.

The figure skating season resumes in the new year with national championships leading into the worlds in Boston in late March. The Canadian championships are in mid-January in Laval, Que.

Alpine skiing: Slow start to the speed season