Ted-Jan Bloemen had a shot at another speedskating Olympic medal. But he just didn’t have it in the 10,000 metres

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This article was published 11/02/2022 (1354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING Ted-Jan Bloemen was in third place and he knew he didn’t have it. He drew his hand across his throat, a signal to his coach, Bart Schouten, and shook his head. The team pursuit was two days away, far too soon. Schouten shouted at him, but it was decided. Bloemen bled time, all the way to the end.

Four years ago it was different, but what wasn’t? Bloemen was Canada’s defending gold medallist in this apex speedskating race: he was still capable of medals at the beginning of this season. But here, in the 5,000 and the 10,000 metres, Bloemen faded. He didn’t used to.

“We just see now that even a 5K or a 10K is just too long for him,” Schouten said. “He’s just not in good enough shape and it’s cost him too much, being sick this close to the Olympics. There was no time to build it back up.”

Bloemen and teammate Graeme Fish have both held the world record in this event; both, however, blamed illness. Fish had a month-long case of COVID in November, and Bloemen caught a lingering flu of some kind in December-January.

So Fish vomited in a garbage can at the end of his race, and finished sixth; Bloemen chopped his hand across his throat and finished eighth. This race, like the 5,000, belonged to Sweden’s Nils van der Poel, who was simply in a different world: He finished 14 seconds ahead of the field, set a world record in 12:30.74, and did it at a rink that wasn’t even at altitude.

“To skate a world record here is unbelievable,” Schouten said. “It’s really, really strong. Really, really, really.”

Bloemen used to be able to do that, and Fish too. Just not here. You could say the pandemic didn’t help: the loss of ice for so long, for instance. But they said it was the illnesses at the end that got them. Bloemen was thinking of his teammates, and of what could be his last Olympic race, when he shut it down.

“I tried to bring down the lap times a little bit a couple of times, but I couldn’t hold them,” he said. “And then I had to push too hard to to do those lap times. So I kind of made the decision to save myself a little bit for the team pursuit, because it starts in two days. I don’t know who made the schedule, but it’s ridiculous; you can’t recover in two days from taking really deep on a 10K.

“I think at the end, with some faster laps, I showed myself and my teammates that the speed’s still coming easy and I’m in good shape. And I didn’t completely destroy my body on this 10K.”

The team pursuit will be 3,000 metres, which Bloemen can still do. It was later that he faded in these races. Still, we might be seeing the end of what was a short, great Canadian Olympic career. Born in the Netherlands, Bloemen’s personality didn’t mesh with the Dutch national team — he has called his younger self uncoachable — but he moved to Canada and felt more at home, somehow. His mother said leaving the Netherlands was heartbreaking for him, but Pyeongchang was the validation: a silver in the 5,000 behind Dutch legend Sven Kramer, and that incredible gold in the 10,000.

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But Bloemen just hasn’t had it in Beijing. Luck of the draw, and maybe more. At 35 years old, with a child, Milan 2026 is a long ways off. At some point, Bloemen will shake his head and give the signal that it’s over, ending a pretty successful Canadian immigrant sports story.

“I’ve been mostly focused on just performing as well as I could at this Olympics,” Bloemen said. “And yeah, I’m really disappointed that I’m not better right now. And for the future, that’s something that I’ll have to evaluate that another time.”

“I think he’s got to talk with his wife (Marlinde),” Schouten said. “And I think he’s got to look at his personal life. I think he can still go for a couple of years. I think we saw the beginning of the season, when he was fresh, he was still able to win medals. I think if he wouldn’t have gotten sick, I think he would have been able to compete for medals. So I think it’s up to him. It’s a big investment for a family to be training this hard, to travel this much.

“But he loves the sport, he loves to speedskate. And I think as long as he feels that love and has that fire inside, I think he can continue. But it’s really up to him.”

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur