Speed ​​skater Laurent Dubreuil ticks all the boxes in the first World Cup of the season

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Canadian speed skating coaches prepared a checklist for their national team athletes during this crucial World Cup long track season.

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“We need to see the progress. We need to see that people improve and perform well. I think it’s a great point, ”Bart Schouten said last month. “Obviously we would like to see some of the top eight performances. The first eight statistically prove that you are there. And obviously we would also like to see some medals. “

Sprint specialist Laurent Dubreuil showed them all of the above this weekend at the Arena Lodowa stadium in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland, a venue that joined the 2018 World Cup rotation and has hosted a total of five men’s races of 500 meters.

Surprisingly, Dubreuil clocked the exact same time, 35.344 seconds, in his first two races there in December 2018, finishing 12th and then ninth. In November 2019 he was faster, 34.975 seconds, to finish third.

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And this weekend he was faster again, 34,687 for bronze on Friday and 34,734 seconds for silver on Sunday.

In the 1,000 meters, Dubreuil posted 1: 11.529 on the same ice in 2018 and finished in 15th place. On Sunday, he skated 1: 08.987, good enough for fifth place.

Progress? Check.

The eight best performances? Check.

Medals? Check. Dubreuil’s silver and bronze contributed to Canada’s impressive three-day seven total, behind only Japan with 11 and the Netherlands with eight.

The Canadians now head to a World Cup in Stavanger, Norway, with even more confidence.

“I skate alone on the ice, but the morale that the team carries, I feel it plays a big factor in our performances,” said Dubreuil. “It’s fun to be around people who are doing well because they aim high and it’s a good way to think. And second, if they achieve those goals, those high goals, then people are happy and we feed on that energy.

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“It was a good weekend in that sense. Seven medals is a very good World Cup for us, and we were good at many different events. “

The women’s team chase squad won gold on Saturday, men took silver on Sunday. Ivanie Blondin won a silver in Sunday’s massive outing. Ted-Jan Bloemen skated to silver in the 5,000 meters on Friday and Isabelle Weidemann took silver in the 3,000 meters. If this weekend is any indication, and it really should be, as all the fields were deep, the Canadians are going to be a threat to the podium at various events by the time the Beijing Olympics take place in February. Many of his athletes, including Dubreuil, are stronger and faster than even last February.

Dubreuil is coming off the best competitive season of his life, capped by a victory in the 500-meter world championship at the Heerenveen bubble in February. It was a glorious end to a strange campaign, one that saw him do less skating and more strength training than ever. The results were difficult to dispute, but he did not consider that balance to be sustainable.

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“I think last year would have been even better if I had done more (skating),” he said last month. “We just nailed the physical aspect of training. We did it well. I think we did well again this year. My numbers in the weight room are even better. I am more explosive. I am more powerful. With more skating I can apply it more on the ice. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. “

Whatever the method, the continuous progression of his 500 and 1,000 meter times in Poland is positive proof that he is still on the rise.

“To be fair, I think they improved a bit on the ice,” he said Sunday. … “It’s not fast here yet, but I think it was even slower in 2018, the first time we came here. But nonetheless, most of that improvement is probably because I’m a better skater and there are two ways you can go faster. You can skate better or you can push harder basically, technically and physically, and I think I’m a much better skater in both than in 2018. “

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And like last season, Dubreuil is on the podium with the fastest sprinters in the world. However, he appears to be unable to catch up with Japan’s Tatsuya Shinhama, who beat Dubreuil by a scant .035 seconds in the 500 meters on Sunday, and finished with silver to Dubreuil’s bronze on Friday.

The 29-year-old from Levis, Que., Laughed that he has been chasing Shinhama since spring 2020, when the Japanese skater beat him three times in a row over the 500-meter distance.

I guess you have my number. He is a great skater. He is the second fastest skater of all time after (Russian Pavel) Kulizhnikov. … It’s fun to see a good skater like that beat him a bit. If he beats you a lot, then you feel like you have no chance of beating him. It hits me, but not much. I feel like I can go get it. That is my sure goal. “