Moose Jaw's Graeme Fish will be skating for Canada at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Speed Skating Canada revealed the Olympic long-track team on Monday afternoon, with Fish slotted in to skate the 10,000 metres at the Games.
The 2022 Winter Olympics begin Feb. 4 and run through Feb. 20, with the 10,000 metres long track race slated for Feb, 11.
It’s been a difficult last couple of years around the track for the 24-year-old former world record holder, and not because of his performances.
Fish dropped out of the 2020 World Cup season and spent 20 months away from competition to specifically avoid any increased chance of contracting COVID-19. As fate would have it, at only the second meet of the 2021 season in Stavanger, Norway this past November, the coronavirus found Fish. He hasn’t competed since, missing the World Cup stops in Salt Lake City and Calgary in the final lead-up to the Olympic Games.
Fish skated his single 10,000 metres of the season in Stavanger and finished in fourth place in a time of 13:07.7, just over seven seconds back of fellow Canadian Olympian Ted-Jan Bloemen.
Sweden Nils van der Poel is the current world record holder in the event with a time of 12:32.95, set at the World Single Distance Championships in February 2021.His time bestest Fish’s mark of 12:33.86 by just under a second.
Fish will join fellow Moose Jaw product Ben Coakwell in representing Canada at the Games.
Coakwell, a brakeman with the Justin Kripps' medal-contender four-man bobsleigh team, has continued to see success on the World Cup circuit and was a virtual lock to be part of Team Canada.
He'll be competing in his third Olympic Games.
