Fort St. John speed skaters compete at long track championships

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Racers competed at the 2025 Canadian speed skating championships from October 23rd to 26th at Calgary’s Olympic Oval (Speed Skating Canada)

CALGARY, AB — Speed skaters from Fort St. John competed with Canada’s best – with some mixed results – while achieving top 20 finishes in Calgary.

The Olympic Oval in the Alberta city was the site of last weekend’s 2025 Canadian Long Track Championships.

Jack Hanson, Kieran Hanson, Matthew Mitchell and Joshua Telizyn raced at the four-day long event in Calgary, with the Fort St. John Speed Skating Club posting to Facebook to wish the delegation representing Team B.C. good luck.

With distances varying from 500 metres to 10,000 metres, each had different degrees of success.

Kieran and Telizyn competed in both the 500 metres and 1,000 metres on the ice. Kieran had top 20 finishes in both races, starting with an 11th in the 1,000 metres at a time of one minute, 8.07 seconds and qualifying for Sunday’s final. He finished 12th in the 500 metres with a time of 36.79 seconds.

He followed it up with a third-place finish in the 1,000-metre finals with a time of one minute, 10.11 seconds.

Telizyn, who has competed on the World Cup circuit, however, was disqualified from the 500 metres, according to results by timekeeper Sportity. It did not detail the reason behind the decision.

He finished in 22nd in the 1,000 metres with a time of one minute, 11.08 seconds – 3.63 seconds off the pace.

Mitchell – who raced on the Junior World Cup circuit in Italy earlier this year – competed in the 1,00 metres, 1,500 metres and 5,000 metres.

Competing in the 5,000 metres on the event’s first day, he finished seventh with a time of six minutes, 42.99 seconds, one place ahead of teammate Jack Hanson, who finished eighth with a time of six minutes, 43.28 seconds.

Mitchell raced in the 1,500 metres, finishing 25th, and the 1,000 metres, placing 16th among 25 skaters.

Jack was the marathon skater, competing in the 10,000 metres. He finished just off the podium in fourth place, with a time of 14 minutes, 5.01 seconds.

The 2025 Canadian long track speedskating championships took place from October 23rd to October 26th in Calgary, Alberta.