Silver a great birthday gift for St-Gelais

Last Updated: Thursday, February 18, 2010 | 4:16 AM ET

By Brandon Hicks, CBC Sports

Marianne St-Gelais won Olympic silver in the women's 500-metre short-track final Wednesday. (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images)

One Olympic race. Two Canadians. Two very different emotions.

First off, joy: Marianne St-Gelais, celebrating her 20th birthday, gave herself undoubtedly the best present she'll get as she won a surprising silver medal in the 500-metre short-track speedskating final Wednesday.

"Apart from having a gold medal, silver is the best gift I could have had," she said.

Then you have heartache: Jessica Gregg couldn't recover from a tough start to the race and finished at the back of the pack, in fourth.

For St-Gelais, call the race a coming-out party along with a birthday celebration. At 20, she now has an Olympic silver medal to her credit, along with a 2009 world junior title at this distance.

"I'm still the rookie, but I've made a name for myself," said St-Gelais. She was alternating between tears and giggles while talking to reporters after the race.

"Before the race I had three objectives," she said. "Top eight was reasonable, top four was ambitious and top three was a dream. But in a race you never know, so I pushed myself to the limit and I went as far as possible."

Tension filled the Pacific Coliseum before the final, and the red-and-white contingent in the stands and watching at home gasped as the first start saw both Canadians go down in a heap at the first turn.

Crowded out

Gregg looked as if she was crowded out by Arianna Fontana of Italy and lost an edge, sending both her and St-Gelais sliding into the wall.

The crash forced a restart and Gregg, one of the fastest starters on the Canadian team, couldn't keep Fontana from boxing her out again on the first turn and wound up way back of the leaders.

"I had a bit of a hesitation around the first corner and it sucks that it was the A-final, and I fought back hard, but in the end I wasn't able to catch those girls," said Gregg, one of CBCSports.ca's bloggers during the Vancouver Olympics.

The Calgary native had several spills at the opening turn during the heats and semis, which might have contributed to her difficulties in the final.

St-Gelais blazed out of the gate to get into a solid silver-medal position.

After half a lap, everyone knew who was going to win: China's Wang Meng, the defending Olympic champion, who just annihilated the field all day long, winning her heats and the final with ease.

The race for second was a bit closer, but St-Gelais stayed ahead of Fontana the whole way through, giving the home crowd reason to cheer when she crossed the finish line.

Team win

And the celebrations didn't end on the ice, as St-Gelais was greeted by her boyfriend Charles Hamelin, the leading skater on the men's team, with a big hug while her teammates serenaded her with Happy Birthday.

"I just felt the greatest emotion of my life," said Hamelin. "I don't think I could have felt better if it was me winning the medal."

Her unexpected silver gave the team reason to cheer, as it was the first medal the short-track team has won so far during the Games. Hamelin was favoured to nab one Saturday, but surprisingly bowed out of the men's 1,500-metre before the final.

The Canadian favourite in the women's 500 had to settle for the B-final and a sixth-place finish. Kalyna Roberge of Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon, Que., was in the semifinal with Wang and St-Gelais.

"I'm telling myself that maybe it was not my place to win a medal, but to help my team win one," said Roberge, who was fourth in the event at the 2006 Olympics.