A helmet is placed on Courtney Sarault's head as athletes, back row from left, William Dandjinou, Jordan Pierre-Gilles, Steven Dubois (obstructed), Maxime Laoun, Felix Roussel, front row: Danaé Blais, Rikki Doak, Florence Brunelle and Kim Boutin, pose for a photograph during the unveiling of the Canadian short track team for the Milan Cortina Olympics, in Montreal on Wednesday.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Canada’s short track speed skating team is heading into the Milano Cortina Olympic Games next February with an ambitious goal: win more medals than ever before.
Bold? Yes, said head coach Marc Gagnon – but entirely possible.
The current crop of Canadian short track skaters is a generational juggernaut. The team won 31 medals – including 15 golds – at the World Tour stops this season and brought home the ISU Team Crystal Globe for the second time. They also won 10 medals at the World Championships last season – Canada’s best showing since 1996.
“Every single athlete on that team has been on the podium in the last two or three years,” Gagnon said at the Canadian Olympic Committee office in Montreal Wednesday, where officials announced the 10-member Team Canada short track roster.
This is why he’s challenged the team to shoot for a record-setting seven podium finishes in February, which would surpass the six they won at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. (Coach Gagnon was an athlete at the time and won three of those medals, including as part of the men’s relay.)
“I said, ‘I’m not asking you guys to do anything different. I just want you to be yourself and keep working as a group and as a team, and let’s go get that as a team,’” he said.
Canada’s competitive success on the World Tour secured the team the maximum number of competitive spots – five men and five women, plus four alternates.
The team includes Montreal-based William Dandjinou, who is currently the top-ranked skater in the men’s World Tour short track standings and a two-time winner of the individual ISU Crystal Globe. This will be the 24-year-old’s first Olympic Games.
“I feel ecstatic. It’s hard to put words to it, because it’s such a long process that when it happens – it feels unreal,” he said.
William Dandjinou will take part in his first Olympics in Italy in February. The 24-year-old is the top-ranked skater in the men’s World Tour short track standings.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
For Dandjinou, who has been a member of the national team since 2019, the current group’s strength is its depth of talent.
“Training with elite makes you elite,” he said. “It’s really about being able to work together. We’re able to talk and actually work with each other.”
They don’t treat each other as rivals, he said. “We try to help each other and that’s what makes us good.”
On the women’s side, Courtney Sarault – who won the ISU Crystal Globe as the top woman overall during the 2025-26 season – will be returning to the Games, after making her debut in Beijing.
Since her last Olympics, the 25-year-old says she’s come to better understand her body and what she needs heading into a competition.
Courtney Sarault competes in the 1000-meter final on day three of the fourth ISU World Tour short track speed skating competition at Dordrecht, a qualifying tournament for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.SEM VAN DER WAL/AFP/Getty Images
“I have a better routine and I have a lot more confidence in myself. It feels like it’s not just the staff telling me what to do to be the best athlete. It feels like it’s a team,” she said. She said having already competed at the Olympics is another advantage. Before Beijing, Sarault said people warned her that your first Games can be a learning experience.
“I was like, ‘Not me! I’m gonna get it done. I’m good under pressure,’ and I really doubted how crazy the Olympics is and how different it is,” she said. From the schedule of competition to the pressure, she says she feels much more prepared.
“Now I feel very confident and I’ve experienced what it’s like.”
The short track roster also includes four-time Olympic medalist Kim Boutin and three-time Olympic medalist Steven Dubois.
Speaking to the excitement around the current group at Wednesday’s press conference, Marc Schryburt, Speed Skating Canada’s director of high performance said bluntly: “On this team, we do not race to participate. We race to win with a smile, as a team together.”
Rounding out the rest of the Team Canada short track roster is Danaé Blais, Florence Brunelle, Rikki Doak, Maxime Laoun, Jordan Pierre-Gilles, and Félix Roussel.