ANDREW BATES
CUP Western Bureau Chief

An excitable Marianne St-Gelais leaned forward in her chair to tell a press conference about her birthday: “I woke up… I was nervous, but happy.”

Freshly out of her teens, the newly-minted silver medalist St-Gelais said that she had a good feeling starting at training the day before her women’s short-track (500m) speed skating competition.

“I just had a good feeling,” she said. “Just relaxed and watched TV, saw Maelle (Ricker) on the podium, looked around the condo and outside at the city.”

When St-Gelais made it to the ice, that feeling continued. “I took it one race at a time,” she said. “Each round felt like a final; I was happy to be there.”

St-Gelais was nervous about the quarter-final because one of her opponents, Lee Eun-Byul, had been a fellow finalist at the last World Cup event of 2009, but succeeding there gave her confidence about the semi-final.

“I said, ”˜Marianne, just calm down, relax, take it easy, have fun. You are at the Olympics. It’s a hard one, but you do what you like, so have fun.’”

According to the effusive St-Gelais, she had focused so hard that she didn’t even realize how she had placed. “I finished second, and then I realized that I went to the finals,” she told the assembled press. “That’s probably why I reacted so hard.”

Once there, it was focus again that kept her in third.

“I was just thinking about following Meng Wang and focusing on her,” she said. Her focus excluded even the athletes behind her. “I thought that was my teammate behind me, so I just thought ”˜do what you have to do, go all the way,’ ” she said. “We were so fast and it’s so hard to make a pass at this speed.”

As it turns out, St-Gelais was not being followed by teammate Jessica Gregg, but Italian Arianna Fontana. Her strategy paid off, however, as she finished a tenth of a second head of Fontana at 43.707 seconds to the Italian’s 43.804.

Both were tenths of a second behind gold medallist Meng Wang, who clocked in at 43.048. According to St-Gelais, Wang and the Chinese team are now a formidable presence in short-track. “She’s a really good skater, she’s the fastest skater in the world,” she said. “She’s (got) really fair play, and she’s just good.”

St-Gelais also extended accolades to the rest of Wang’s teammates. “In general, the Chinese team is really really strong, and we’ll see them again in the future,” she said. “I think we’re stuck with this team.”

After having earned her medal, she appeared nothing less than thrilled.

“I’m really really proud of my performance,” she said. “It’s more than a dream.” St-Gelais and her boyfriend, Charles Hamelin, were short on time to focus on her medal or her birthday, however.

St-Gelais is in the ladies’ 3000m relay on February 24th, while Hamelin still has the 5000m relay as well as the 500m and 1000m solo events to contend with. St-Gelais smiled when asked if she already celebrated her birthday or would celebrate later that evening. “Maybe after the last game,” she said. “On the 26th.”

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photo: Gerald Deo