Tyson Langelaar brings world junior speed skating medals home

WINNIPEG – Winnipeg speed skater Tyson Langelaar even exceeded his own expectations on the world stage.

Langelaar returned to Winnipeg on Monday night after he won four medals at the World Junior Long Track Championships in Finland over the weekend. Langelaar captured a silver medal in the team sprint competition and won three bronze medals for third place finishes in the 1000 metre event, the 1500 metre, and in the overall individual standings.

“I think it was a bit better than what I was aiming for.” Langelaar said. “I was looking for a few individual medals and I came out at the end with a few individual medals, but I was going into it trying to grab one in the 1500 which I ended up doing. But the 1000 was sort of a shocker.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I think it was a bit better than what I was aiming for." Langelaar said. "I was looking for a few individual medals and I came out at the end with a few individual medals, but I was going into it trying to grab one in the 1500 which I ended up doing. But the 1000 was sort of a shocker."

Now that he’s had a couple days to soak it all in, it’s the all around medal that was the most rewarding for Langelaar.

“We came in thinking we wanted to be top six.” said coach Tyler Derraugh. “And we wanted to shoot to try and get a podium in the 15 (1500 metre) or the thousand and getting podium in both of those and then the overall was just a bonus on top.”

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Langelaar was greeted at the airport by his family and a throng of young skaters from the Manitoba speed skating community.

“It was real nice having the family and team support back home.” said Langelaar. “It’s really nice to see all the young kids too, come out, so to sort of look up to me as a sort of role model.”

Langelaar won seven medals at the Canadian Junior Championships in January.  The 18-year-old still has another year left of junior eligibility so he’ll get a chance to upgrade to gold at the worlds next year. And he already has an idea how to get there.

“I think just cleaning up all the messy areas.” said Langelaar. “Just trying to perfect each part.”

This was Langelaar’s last major competition of the season. He’s already looking ahead to next season’s Olympic trials, but the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is probably more of a realistic goal.

“I’m pretty excited to see what I can do next year.” Langelaar said. “See my results and if I have good ones, I have good ones. If I don’t, I’ll see where I can improve.”

WATCH: Tyson Langelaar arrives home with World Junior medals

0:55 Tyson Langelaar Returns From Jr. Worlds With 4 Medals