From childhood dreams to Olympic ice: Short track returns to Vancouve

Sixteen years after the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Canada’s next generation of short-track speed skaters will return to the city that helped inspire their careers, bringing back Olympic memories, home-crowd expectations and a new season of racing to the Pacific Coliseum. The Short Track World Tour will kick off the 2026–27 season at the historic Pacific Coliseum, bringing teams from around the world to Vancouver. The competition will showcase the speed, power and precision of short-track racing, rekindling the excitement that made the sport a highlight of the 2010 Games.

For Félix Roussel, Vancouver is more than the next stop on the international short-track calendar. It is where a childhood memory began shaping his future.

Roussel was nine years old when he watched the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics from his living room. One moment, in particular, stayed with him: Canadian speed-skating star Charles Hamelin winning gold in the men’s 500 metres before returning to the ice roughly 30 minutes later to help Canada claim gold in the men’s relay.

“I was just cheering in my living room and jumping everywhere for them,” Roussel recalled. “And then I started skating because I enjoyed the rush.”

Now 25, the Sherbrooke, Quebec, native is preparing to compete in Vancouver himself as a member of Canada’s national short-track team. The opening leg of the 2026–27 ISU Short Track World Tour will bring international competition back to the city for the first time since the 2010 Games, offering athletes and spectators an opportunity to reconnect with a defining chapter in Canadian Olympic history.

Introduced in the 2024–25 season, the ISU Short Track World Tour replaced the former ISU Short Track World Cup series, bringing together the world’s top-ranked skaters across multiple international events.

Athletes compete in the 500m, 1000m and 1500m distances, as well as relay events, earning points towards the season standings. Canada dominated the 2025–26 campaign, claiming all three Crystal Globes. William Dandjinou won the men’s overall title, Courtney Sarault won the women’s title, and the Canadian Ice Maples secured the team title for the second consecutive season.

For Roussel, returning to the same venue where his childhood heroes competed carries a particular significance.

“I think it would be incredible to race in the same arena as Charles and Marianne,” he said, referring to Hamelin and fellow Canadian skater Marianne St-Gelais.

He hopes to draw inspiration from the atmosphere that surrounded those Olympic performances while creating new memories of his own.

“It’s truly special to race there and try to see how they were feeling over there during the Games,” he said.

An Olympic legacy that continues

Roussel is not the only member of the Canadian team whose ambitions were shaped by Vancouver 2010.

Courtney Sarault was 10 when she watched the Games. For her, the Olympics represented a moment when Canadian athletes demonstrated what was possible on the international stage.

“I think it’s such an iconic Olympic Games and it’s one that went down in history for sure,” she said.

Watching Canadian athletes succeed changed the way she imagined her own future.

“And it definitely changed my dreams,” she said, recalling how the Games made her believe that she, too, might one day achieve something similar.

Sixteen years later, Sarault is among the athletes preparing to compete on the ice that helped inspire those ambitions. She sees the return to Vancouver as an opportunity for the current generation to build on the achievements of the athletes who came before them.

Charles Hamelin and Marianne St-Gelais, she said, “have been the faces of short track for so long.”

Returning to the venue where they made their mark offers an opportunity to honour that history while adding new chapters to Canada’s story in the sport.

“It’s going to be cool to kind of get on the ice that everything happened there for them and kind of write some more stories for Canada,” Sarault said.

For both skaters, the connection between watching the Olympics as children and competing there as adults gives the Vancouver event a significance that goes beyond the opening weekend of a new season.

Racing with the home crowd behind them

The return also means something to Olivier Jean, Canada’s national short-track coach and an Olympic champion at Vancouver 2010.

Competing in those Games is one of Jean's most defining career achievements.

“Racing in Vancouver in 2010 was the greatest competition of my life. It was such a beautiful memory for me,” Jean recalled.

He hopes the atmosphere will be just as memorable when the international circuit returns to the city.

Racing in front of a home crowd can give Canadian skaters an extra boost, with spectators’ cheers adding to the energy in the arena.

“You need to feel and use the energy of the crowd,” Jean said. “The cheering usually gives us a little bit more speed.”

Sarault shares that expectation. She hopes the Canadian team will receive loud support throughout the competition, creating an atmosphere that helps the athletes perform at their best.

“As a Canadian, what I expect from the home crowd is definitely just a lot of loud cheering, a lot of support and encouragement,” she explained.

The athletes will have to manage the pressure that comes with competing in front of a home audience, however. Sarault describes the moments before a race as particularly intense, with the first race of a competition often bringing the greatest stress.

Her approach is to focus on positive self-talk, concentrate on the task immediately ahead and avoid becoming overwhelmed by expectations about results.

Rather than looking too far into the future, she tries to improve a little every day.

Speed, strategy and the unexpected

There is more to short-track speed skating than sheer speed. For unfamiliar spectators and casual viewers, the sport can be surprisingly thrilling, with tight corners, close passes and fierce battles for position, where even the smallest margins can determine the outcome.

Jean expects the return to Vancouver to deliver the kind of action that made short track so compelling.

“Tight passes, close corners, contact, some crashes, always exciting races with short track speed skating,” he explains.

Roussel offers a similarly direct invitation to first-time spectators.

“To people who’ve never watched short track live, I would say get your seatbelt on, because the action is real and the speed is really impressive,” he said.

He believes watching from the stands provides a different appreciation of the sport’s pace and intensity than viewing it on television.

Danaé Blais, another member of Canada’s national team, agrees that experiencing the action in person makes a difference.

“You don’t really see the speed and the intensity of the sport when you’re not here in live,” she said.

Blais, 27, has spent a decade competing on the international circuit. As she prepares for Vancouver, she is concentrating on the details of her racing, particularly her starts in the 500 metres, a distance she is working to develop.

Her comments offer a reminder of the preparation behind the spectacle. Short track demands considerable physical and mental effort, with athletes spending months building strength, refining technique and pushing their limits before the season begins.

“It’s really, really physical,” Blais said of training. “It hurts.”

Yet the challenge is part of what keeps her committed to the sport.

A new chapter on familiar ice

As Roussel and Sarault look to build on their progress this season, the return to Vancouver offers a chance to compete on the same ice that inspired their childhood dreams.

Coach Olivier Jean hopes the crowd will recreate the atmosphere of 2010.

“I’m really hoping the crowd is going to be as energetic as it was during the Olympic Games, and that they’re going to bring those memories back to life for the Canadian team this year,” Jean said.

For Roussel and Sarault, those memories are more than nostalgia. As the short track returns to Vancouver, they have the chance to create new ones and inspire the next generation.

Martyn Hindley

+41 79 581 9309

media@isu.org

Consultez la version source sur MediaConnect.com : https://mediaconnect.com/from-childhood-dreams-to-olympic-ice-short-track-returns-to-vancouve

International Skating Union

This document is neither produced nor endorsed by AFP.

Although distributed by MediaConnect, its issuer remains solely responsible for its content

Its reproduction is authorized in context without any distortion of content.

If you have any question about this document, please contact its issuer.