When Laurent Dubreuil is on the racing oval, bending low into the ice, he can feel the staccato thump of his heart, the expansion of his lungs, the whoosh of the wind.
A crowd is just background rumble, muffled by Spandex skin encasing him from ankle to crown. His coach’s voice, shouting encouragement or instruction, he can recognize that. In the “Ice Ribbon” at the Beijing Olympics, where he will be competing in the 500-meter long-track speedskating Saturday, Dubreuil will likely catch that sound clearly enough, with only selected spectators allowed in the venue.
“Going 60 kilometers an hour, you don’t really hear what people are yelling around you, the crowd. You hear the wind.”
His mind won’t be quite blank, more empty of any extraneous thought.
“I am focused on a few technical things, cues that I repeat to myself. During the race, if I do those things right, usually the execution is good. My lean on the line and my lean in the corner, and staying low because the higher you are the less aerodynamic you are. Just a few simple cues because if they’re too complicated, you won’t be natural in your skating. But at the same time, you need to think about a couple of things because if not you’re kind of mindlessly skating and that’s not the right approach either.”
Matter over mind.
Mentally and kinetically, the in-sync perfection of a race, Dubreuil struggles to define. “When skating is going well, it feels easy, you feel free, you feel light on the ice. It’s like, you finish and you’re not even tired. You went faster than you’ve ever gone before but it felt easier than you’ve ever skated. It’s hard to describe but it feels like it simultaneously goes fast and then you have time to think while you’re doing it.”
That is what the reigning men’s world 500-meter champion experienced at a World Cup race in Calgary last month, where he broke the Canadian record of Jeremy Wotherspoon — 34.03 seconds — that had stood since 2007. He did it with a time of 33.778.
The world record, 33.61, was set by Russia’s Pavel Kulizhnikov three years ago.
Dubreuil, who grew up idolizing Wotherspoon, has called his compatriot’s record time “mythical,” a word he won’t apply to his own eclipsing achievement.
“When Jeremy skated that, it was a world record. And it remained a world record for eight years. That’s a very long time to be the fastest man of all time. And when he beat the previous world record, he beat it by two-tenths of a second. Jeremy was totally ahead of his time. He skated times that would be silver medal these days, and he did it 15 years ago. That’s other-worldly.
“It was as close to perfect skating that could be done. Compared to the field now and to my rivals, I’m nowhere near as good as he used to be. So, I wouldn’t say my race was mythical, I know I can skate faster. But his definitely was.”
The 29-year-old, who is also contending in the 1,000 meters on Feb. 18, is among Canada’s best prospects for Olympic gold. And he’s been flying, winning eight consecutive 500-metre medals on the World Cup circuit: two gold, two silver, four bronze. In Pyeongchang, his debut Games, he finished 18th in the 500 and 25th in the 1000.
Most people don’t understand how hard it is to chip a tenth of a second off sprint times.
“A tenth can be the difference between winning and eighth place,” Dubreuil explains to the Star in an earlier interview from his home in Levis, Que. “In the last 10 years, going back to when I was a junior, I’ve shaved less than a full second off my time. In the 500 it’s down to hundreds of a second in every race. It’s very, very slim margins. Everything has to be right and even the smallest mistake can throw you off.”
Both his parents were Olympic long-track skaters, putting the competitive life aside when children came along. There was no income in the sport back then to raise a family. “Thankfully for me that’s not the case and I can live off my passion. It’s something that’s in my blood, I guess.”
While playing a variety of sports from a young age — seven years in soccer — that other stuff was just for fun and none of it ever made him anxious. “I don’t think even once in my life I’ve been nervous in any other sport, even doing shootouts in soccer tournament. But skating was different, it was important to me, it was my dream. I was lucky to be good at what I loved.”
He arrived in Beijing afloat on the momentum achieved over this competitive season, part of a long-track team that boasts several skaters right in the meat of their prime, veterans such as Ted-Jan Bloemen — 2018 Olympic champion in the 10,000 meters — and Ivanie Blondin; and Olympic rookies Brooklyn McDougall and Tyler Langelaar. Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann and Valerie Maltais together won gold in all three World Cup pursuit races held this season. Graeme Fish burst onto the international stage in 2020 with a world title in the 10,000. It’s a formidable crew.
“We’re at the perfect time in our career, most of us,” says Dubreuil.
He’s also a more learned skater, having found a training sweet spot, which Dubreuil credits for improvement. “More emphasis on rest, which might sound counter-productive, but I probably trained too much, too hard, before. The year before the pandemic was the best year of my career and then last year was even better and this year better still. It’s just knowing what to do, what works for me. I’ve figured it out.”
And then there’s Rose, his two-year-old daughter, who’s brought a sense of balance and perspective to his whirlwind competitive existence.
“She showed me that skating is not the most important thing in the world. That’s made me a lot less nervous going into races because she, good race or bad race, she does n’t care, she’s happy.
“That’s made me realize that if the person I love most in the world doesn’t care too much about my results, maybe I shouldn’t care as much as I used to either.”
But he still cares a lot.
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