Ivanie Blondin is back on track

She makes it look easy, flying around the oval at world class times, but for Speed skater Ivanie Blondin, the years since her medal-less return from the PyeongChang winter games have been marked by deep depression and poor mental health. Strangely enough, the versatile long-track athlete takes comfort in that history. Her attitude is: if she can still post winning times, even when she’s not feeling anywhere near top form, then she has to admit, the process is working. Fresh off becoming the new national champion in the 1500m –while still feeling sub par- the skater sat down to chat with Player’s Own Voice host Anastasia Bucsis, surrounded by a small menagerie of rescue animals. Blondin lays out her plans for the road to Beijing, and goes deep into the unusual living arrangements she and her husband, Hungarian speed skater Konrad Nagy, find themselves in, as the two athletes train and practise an ocean apart in Canada and Europe. Blondin has tasted competition peaks and valleys and she is making no secret of her drive to perform better than ever at the Beijing Olympics.