Long track speed skater Valérie Maltais has won Canada’s first medal of the Milan Cortina Winter Games – a bronze – in the women’s 3000m race on Saturday at the Milano Speed Skating Stadium.

The women’s 3000m was also Canada’s first medal at the Beijing Games, when Maltais’s teammate Isabelle Weidemann – who placed fifth in Saturday’s event – also took bronze. In her Olympic debut, Canadian Laura Hall placed 13th.

Maltais finished the race with a time of 3:56.93 behind Italian Francesca Lollobrigida – who set an Olympic record with a time of 3:54.28 – and Norway’s Ragne Wiklund.