Canada's Laurent Dubreuil competes in the speed skating men's 500m at Milano Speed Skating Stadium in Milan on Saturday.DANIEL MUNOZ/AFP/Getty Images
Four years ago in Beijing, speed skater Laurent Dubreuil missed a podium by 3/100ths of a second in his favourite event, the 500m sprint.
“I could’ve gone faster,” he said of that near miss. “I should’ve gone faster. That what was harder to accept.”
For all four years, he worked himself over about it. He turned 30 in the interim. At points, he was taking encouragement from his young daughter, “Congrats dad, you got 8th place!”
He saw the event take a leap forward through America’s Jordan Stolz and Dutchman Jenning de Boo, 21 and 22, respectively. He wasn’t winning many races, but he was hanging in there.
On Saturday, he set an Olympic record. Less than ten minutes later, Stolz and de Boo, racing in tandem, both broke it. Stolz won gold.
But it may have been a better, if different, triumph for Dubreuil. Finally, he could let himself off the hook.
“Now it would have been easier to be fourth because I was as good as I could be,” he said. “Sometimes people are better than you. I’m just glad it was two people.”
Dubreuil is one of those 33-but-actually-63 sort of athletes. He tells dad jokes and likes to appear to be pining for retirement. When he spoke of Stolz and de Boo, he made it seem as if he’d come up competing against their grandfathers.
“They don’t make it easy to win medals any more,” said old man Dubreuil. “I’m glad to have shared a podium with them.”
What about that surprise silver he won in Beijing? Dubreuil waved it off. A bit of good luck, he seemed to suggest.
Once a power on the long track, Canada has begun to fade. They have only two medals here so far. Both of them were won by athletes in the middle 30s (the other was a bronze from 35-year-old distance skater Valerie Maltais). They are on tap for another in the women’s pursuit. Canada’s team finished first in Saturday’s quarter-final. The average on that team is 32.
There has been no suggestion that a next generation is about to pop out and dominate. Meanwhile, the Dutch and the Americans are winning with children who will be competing at Olympics for another decade.
It’s possible that this is the end for Canadian speed skating, at least for now.
If so, Dubreuil is one of those who will be putting out the lights. He’s not a household name, and seems to have less than zero interest in becoming one.
Talking later about funding, he agreed that money is necessary to create a winning program, but “as skaters we have to take responsibility and tell yourself you have everything you need to win an Olympic medal.”
By which he means talent and desire, and little else. The athlete must do as he has, and suffer for their chance at greatness.
There are many more famous Canadian Olympians than the two-time podium finisher Laurent Dubreuil, but there aren’t many more Olympian Canadians.
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