Canada’s Kim Boutin has quickly made herself at home on the podium at the ISU short track speed skating world championships.
The Sherbrooke, Que., native collected silver in both the women’s 500-metre and 1,500m events on Saturday in Montreal.
Boutin, who had won bronze at the Beijing Games in February in the 500m, concluded with a time of 42.570 seconds, just .094 seconds back of winner Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands.
Dutch skater Yara van Kerkhof placed third (42.642), while Montreal native Alyson Charles finished fourth (42.772).
Earlier, the 27-year-old Boutin crossed the finish line for the 1,500m with a time of two minutes, 24.201 seconds, narrowly edging out third-place finisher Seo Whimin of South Korea and fellow Canadian Courtney Sarault by less than a second.
South Korea’s Choi Minjeong grabbed gold (2:23.594), breaking past the field with three laps to go and never giving any room to be passed for the remainder of the race.
Boutin’s string of podium of finishes has placed her in first in the overall rankings, three points ahead of Minjeong and five points ahead of Velzeboer.
Canada’s men’s and women’s relay teams both advanced to the Sunday final by finishing second in their respective semifinal heats.
The Netherlands finished first in the men’s 5,000m relay semifinal, while South Korea and Hungary also qualified by finishing behind Canada in third and fourth place, respectively.
The men’s final is expected to be the final competitive event for Canadian icon Charles Hamelin before his retirement from the sport. The ‘Locomotive de Saint-Julie’ is skating with Pascal Dion, Steven Dubois and Maxime Laoun.
The Canadian team of Kim Boutin, Courtney Sarault, Danaé Blais and Florence Brunelle concluded second behind South Korea in the women’s 3,000m relay semifinal. The Netherlands concluded third ahead of the Italian team.
