Quebec took the short track to medal nirvana Sunday afternoon at Lakewood Dental Arena.
Blue was the jersey colour of the day as six Quebec skaters claimed all of the Canada Winter Games medals to be had in the men's and women's short track speed skating 1,500m event.
Rosalie Tremblay of Saguenay-Lac St-Jean earned her first gold medal of the Games and shared her moment in the spotlight with teammates Batrice Lamarche of Quebec City and Catherine Desjardins of Montreal, who won silver and bronze respectively.
"I was hoping I would be able to do but I was not sure of myself because the other girls are strong," said the 17-year-old Tremblay. "I know that Quebec is a good province in speed skating but Ontario and the other provinces are good too. In speed skating anything can happen and I was stressed before the final. You can never predict it."
There was more to celebrate for Quebec supporters who packed the stands to capacity in a crowd of about 900. Antoine Roy of Levis, Marc-Olivier Lemay of Montreal and Dominic Goyette of Montreal did their part, setting a blistering pace while claiming the top three positions in the men's 1,500.
"I am so proud of the Quebec team,"said Tremblay. "Coming here, you're for yourself, but not only that, this is principally for Quebec. We're representing Quebec here and the same thing happened for the guys. Six medals for Quebec is really nice. We were hoping that would arrive and we hope it's the same for the next distance."
Early-race favourite Simon Godin got squeezed out of his racing line on the inside track and lost an edge four laps into the men's A-final, knocking him out of contention. Roy seized the moment and took the lead ahead of Lemay, the silver medalist, and bronze medalist Goyette, who stayed close but were never in position to pass Roy.
"It's a good feeling, it means all the hard work I did this season and the past summer was all worth it," said Roy. "We train as a group and we did the same thing in the race, not making any stupid moves.
"(Crashes) can happen, sometimes you win and sometimes bad luck can happen, it's always different. We train together and now we are on the podium together, that's what we wanted at the beginning of the Games."
Short track resumes today at Kin 1 from 11:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. with the 500m and 1,000m preliminary races and the 3,000 relay semifinals
