Before she even took her first lap of the Kin 1 ice, Calla Haaheim knew there was a target painted on her back under all that long flowing red hair.
Ranked first out of 22 female skaters in the Canadian Junior Open short track championships based on how fast she finished in her previous races this season, the 17-year-old from Kelowna came to Prince George from her training base in Calgary as a solid medal favourite in all three individual distances.
In Saturday’s 1,500 m event Haaheim did the expected and was one of the eight quickest who advanced to the final. She was in the lead, with I ½ laps left in a13 ½-lap race when her Olympic Oval clubmate Prabnoor Grewal fell and injured her ankle, which resulted in a call-back.
That meant the other seven skaters had to start a new race all over again to decide the medals. Officials allowed a couple of the slower groups to race to give the medal contenders a needed breather but it was the same result when Haaheim got back into her racing stride and she cruised to her first gold medal of the day, winning in 2:46.969, nearly a full second ahead of Quebec’s Abbighael Jeune, who held off fellow Quebecker Lea Boucher for silver.
“That was a bit scary,” said Haaheim. “I’d done 12 out of 13 laps and that made me worry, I was going to be too tired but it worked out.”
In the race restart, Haheim made her move into second place with three laps to go and gained the lead just as she and Jeaune started the bell lap.
“I passed the one girl (Boucher) and I was in second Abbighael was almost half a corner ahead and I just kept building my speed and caught up to her and ended up making the pass with one lap to go,” said Haaheim. “I felt lucky that it went smoothly.”
It was a much less complicated path to gold for Haaheim in the 500 m final. She made passed Boucher heading into the bell lap to assume the lead and won the sprint to the finish by a quarter-second, posting a time of 48.121. Boucher took silver (48.395) and Jeune got there for bronze (48.432).
“The start was a bit messy and I was worried it was going to get called back and I think I was in fourth and I kept working my way up to the front and I had the chance to make a pass into first and luckily it worked out,” said Haaheim.
Haaheim moved to Calgary for skating three years ago. She qualified for the Canada Cup meet at the end of January in Calgary but decided instead to focus on the Junior Open, knowing the top three male and female skaters in the aggregate standings will get to race with the national team seniors in the Canada Cup finals in March in Calgary.
“The season hasn’t gone the best so I decided to do this (Junior Open) instead just to have a race that’s more fun and it definitely is a lot of fun,” said Haaheim. “It’s nice to have a meet like this that kind of gives a sense of achievement.”
She followed her older brother Erik to the Olympic Oval program in Calgary, an ISU training centre of excellence where most of top Western Canadian skaters are based.
“I’m super proud of her, she’s been handling it well, going back-to-back with those two 1,500s is not easy,” said Olympic oval club coach Pat Duffy. “She’s been on the ice with the Quebec skaters before so she kind of knows how to handle that, it’s tough racing. She just needed to do a quick reset after winning the 1,500, getting called back and having to do it again.
“The start of the year didn’t go so well and she had a little injury spring up on her and now she’s on the way back up. This is a great confidence boost for her.”
Haaheim started skating and raced in Prince George when she was 11, at the 2019 provincial age group championships.
“I think we’re not going as fast as we usually do but the ice here is pretty good, it seems pretty grippy and I like it,” Haaheim said.
In the men’s races Saturday, Quebec skaters swept the 1,500 m podium. Charles Fournier was the pace-setter, clocking 2:26.433, a hair’s-width ahead of Justin Bessette (2:26.482), while Thomas Brault (2:27.460) took bronze.
In the 500 m, Bessette was bumped into gold-medal position when the judges ruled Charles-Etienne Morin if Quebec didn’t give way to allow Bessette a lane in the final corner as they started their sprint to the finish. That moved BC skater Barnett Kai of Surrey from bronze to silver and Felix Brouffard of Quebec into the bronze position.
“It was a tight move but in the end the referee decided it was an illegal move and that’s why he was DQ’d, because he didn’t allow space at the last corner,” said Bessette, 18, a native of Quebec City who trains at the Canadian Regional Training Centre in Montreal.
“This happens mostly in finals, they’re checking every tight move. It was a controversial decision. Of course I came here to win the most medals possible and I’m glad to win the gold today. I did great in the 1,500 with silver.”
For Bessette, the Prince George races are a final tuneup before the Canada Cup race meet in Sherbrooke, Que., Jan. 24-26.
Kai decided to play it safe in the 500 final and that kept him out of trouble and put the 19-year-old Olympic Oval team member on the podium.
“A lot of (the finalists) were in the same semifinal so we did a lot of the limit testing there to see how all the top speeds and accelerations panned out so I was pretty confident in that aspect and took a more conservative approach and I was surprised at the end when I saw the physical contact between the two skaters (Morin and Bressette),” said Kai, who made the B-final in the 1,500.
“Charles-Etienne didn’t give way and ultimately he was penalized. I had something left in the tank to get that last lap finished.”
Kai started skating when he was 10. Surrey doesn’t have a speed skating club and Kai grew up racing for the Port Coquitlam Lightning Speed Skating Club. He moved to Calgary when he was 15.
Racing resumed Sunday with the 1,000 m and 3,000 m relays.
