As a first-year member of the Canadian senior national short track speed skating team, small-town product Jamie Macdonald is making a quick impression at the highest level of the sport.
Macdonald, a 21-year-old who grew up in Fort St. James, was a silver-medalist at the season-opening ISU World Cup event, Nov. 5-6 in Calgary. There, she zipped to second spot in a 500-metre final. For Macdonald, who claimed bronze in a 1,000m race at the end of last season as a national development team athlete, the silver at the Calgary Olympic Oval was her best World Cup result to date.
Then, last weekend, Macdonald was in Salt Lake City for the second stop on the World Cup circuit. At the meet, held at the Utah Olympic Oval, she helped Canada claim a bronze medal in the women's relay. While in Salt Lake, she also established a new Canadian record of two minutes 16.635 seconds in the 1,500-metre distance.
All in all, she's proving she belongs among the world's best short-trackers, even if she did have humble beginnings with the Fort St. James Falcons speed skating club.
"It feels pretty good," said Macdonald, who was in Prince George earlier this week after making her return from Salt Lake City. "You definitely feel like you're a bit of an underdog at first and then you kind of prove yourself. It's a lot of fun."
Under the tutelage of Falcons coach Keith Gordon, Macdonald began speed skating when she was six years old. Gordon, she said, had a big influence on her.
"He was a really good coach for me when I was younger and built a bit of a base with skating," she said. "He had fairly good technical advice and stuff. It was a good place to start."
As Macdonald grew, she began to dominate at the provincial level and, at age 11, was the Canadian midget champion in both short and long track. During those years and the ones that followed, she often competed at the Central Interior Challenge in Prince George. Through the sport, Macdonald also got to know several P.G. speed skaters, individuals like Alexis Gaudet, Tim Hempsall, Sarah Pousette, Nico Hiller and Lucas Hiller.
"I used to come every Saturday to train with the group here," Macdonald said. "There was a great group of skaters - like older skaters and a few my age that were pretty good. It was good to train with them."
Prior to her Grade 12 high school year, Macdonald moved to Calgary so she could join the Olympic Oval training program. After graduation from high school, she started classes at the University of Calgary, all while continuing to work on her development as a skater. During that phase of life, Macdonald won a relay silver medal at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax and skated for Canada at the 2013 and 2015 World University Games. In 2015, she was part of a women's relay team that bagged a bronze medal.
Last season, Macdonald was on her blades in four World Cup meets and, as a development team member, showed great promise. That individual bronze medal - which she won in Dordrich, Netherlands - served as a perfect confidence-builder heading into this season, a year that began early when she made a summertime move to Montreal.
"I made the move to Montreal so I could train with the rest of the national team," she said. "They're great girls to train with - they're all so strong and it's such a positive atmosphere there."
Macdonald is now one of 15 athletes on the senior national short track team, which was unveiled by Speed Skating Canada in September. She's the only B.C. member of the squad and also has the distinction of being the first-ever northern B.C. product to make Team Canada in short track.
Macdonald's silver medal at the Calgary World Cup meet was doubly thrilling because several of her family members - parents Julie and Russ, sister Caitlynn and grandparents Barb, Eve and Jim - were in the seats as spectators.
"It was amazing to have them there for that," Macdonald said.
"My parents, they've been pretty awesome. I moved to Calgary when I was 16 and they were supporting me in that and they would come down every month basically to see how I was doing. They really encouraged me to chase after this sport and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have been able to."
In Salt Lake City, Macdonald played a minor role in the relay bronze because she only skated in a heat, not the final. For her, the new Canadian record in the 1,500 was the more exciting accomplishment. In that race, she went about five seconds under her previous personal-best time in a competition setting.
"I was definitely surprised when I looked at the time," she said. "I was like, 'Whoa!'"
Macdonald's new mark broke one set by Kalyna Roberge in 2008 in Quebec City.
Macdonald is now at a break in her schedule and will next be heading to Shanghai, China, for the third World Cup of the season. Competition starts on Dec. 9. After that, the tour will stop in Gangneung, Korea, for a meet that will double as a test event for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Macdonald is focused squarely on making Team Canada for the 2018 Games so having the opportunity to compete in Gangneung could be beneficial to her a year or so down the road.
"The ice is different in each place you skate," she said. "Getting used to it and knowing the feel of it (is good) because the next time you go there the nerves are going to be high. I think it will help with the adjustment back, getting used to the ice again and getting that feel and knowing how much pressure you can put on the ice."
Macdonald said making Canada's 2018 Olympic team is a realistic goal.
"The Olympic trials are going to be next summer, in August, and it's the top five they'll select for the team," she said. "So I think that's definitely possible. I'm sixth right now so a little bit more experience on the World Cup team and World Cup circuit and I think I'll be ready to go."
