Canada wins team Crystal Globe, Dandjinou caps World Tour season with 1000m gold
Team Canada wins the inaugural ISU Team Crystal Globe, finishing as the top short track nation of the season at the ISU Short Track World Tour finale in Milan, Italy, on Sunday.
After securing the men’s overall title, William Dandjinou wrapped up his season with a victory in the men’s 1000m final.
Dandjinou posted a time of 1:23.025 to secure the top step of the podium. He was followed closely by Italy’s Pietro Sighel (1:23.119) and Korean Jang Sung-woo (1:23.220).
Canadians also collected a pair of medals from Sunday’s relay events. The men’s squad of Dandjinou, Maxime Laoun, Jordan Pierre-Gilles and Félix Roussel clinched silver, finishing behind Italy (6:42.822). Kazakhstan (6:46.068) rounded out the podium with a bronze finish.
In the mixed team relay, Pierre-Gilles and Roussel joined Danaé Blais and Florence Brunelle to skate their way to another silver medal. The Canadian quartet completed the race with a time of 2:38.187, just narrowly edged out by the Netherlands (2:38.005). Japan (2:38.339) finished close behind, taking bronze.
Canada was awarded the first-ever team crystal globe, which is based on the results from every race this season. The Ice Maples topped the final standings with 8,731 points—1,812 more than second-place finishers the Netherlands.
On the women’s side, Brunelle finished fifth overall in the women’s 500m final.
William Dandjinou clinches first career Crystal Globe
On Saturday, Dandjinou secured Canada’s first-ever overall title with a pair of top-10 results. Although Canadian short track skaters were held off the World Tour podium for the first time all season, the Montréal native gave them something to celebrate by securing the men’s ISU Crystal Globe as the season’s top overall skater.
The 23-year-old dethroned two-time champion Park Ji-won of Korea in the process.
Dandjinou began the day with a ninth-place finish in the 1500m event. Advanced into the 500m final after crashing out in the semifinal, Dandjinou fell just short of the podium with a fourth-place result but finished one spot ahead of Dutch skater Jens van ‘T Wout to secure the overall title.
“I am very happy to have clinched the Crystal Globe today,” he said. “I would have liked to have better individual races, but sometimes it’s important to focus on the bigger objective and not the performance of the moment. So, overall, I think it was a great day that was more concentrated on what needed to be done than on perfection.”
A pair of Canadian women also came close to the podium on Saturday in individual distances.
Victim of a crash during the women’s 1000m final, Florence Brunelle was the first of three fallen skaters back onto her feet, crossing the finish line in third position for what seemed like a bittersweet bronze medal. The 21-year-old was however penalized for not staying in her lane in the straight, relegating her to the bottom of the standings and elevating Italy’s Elisa Confortola into bronze medal position.
Danae Blais was also involved in the crash and settled for a fourth-place result, behind Confortola (1:42.317) and the American duo of Corinne Stoddard (1:29.445) and Kristen Santos-Griswold (1:29.320).
The women’s relay squad of Blais, Brunelle, Kim Boutin and Courtney Sarault fell just short of the podium, battling tough ice conditions and difficult exchanges. They secured a fourth-place finish behind China, Italy and the Netherlands.
