Laurent Dubreuil (CAN) took his third gold medal at the ISU Four Continents Championships in Quebec City, but not without a little hiccup. In Sunday’s 1000m, the Olympic silver medalist needed to overcome a near-collision with pair-mate Conor McDermott-Mostowy (USA) at the first backstretch to bring home the title.
To conclude competition on the final day at the Gaétan Boucher Oval, Korea won the men’s Team Pursuit.
Favourite Dubreuil overcomes collision to take third gold
As the only skater on the startlist with a sub-1:07 record, Dubreuil was the outright favourite for the 1000m title, and when he took the ice in the final pairing, Seong-Hyeon Park (KOR) had posted a fastest time of 1:09.83.
Starting in the outer lane, Dubreuil opened 0.3s faster than the Korean, and over half a second faster than his American pair-mate. At the first backstretch, Dubreuil and McDermott-Mostowy ended up almost level, with Dubreuil having priority because he was the faster skater coming from the outside lane.
Laurent Dubreuil (CAN) survived a near-collision with pair-mate Conor McDermott-Mostowy (USA) to take gold in the 1000m. @ ISU
McDermott-Mostowy was surprised. “I honestly was expecting Dubreuil to be way further ahead of me going into that second corner,” he said.
“I thought we were close and I had to make the decision to either scrub the most important corner of the race, or just try to go as hard as I can, and hopefully get over in time. I didn't quite make it, but it happens.”
After the incident, Dubreuil managed to get his pace back and win the distance with a time of 1:09.28, pushing Park into second place and fellow Korean Tae-Yun Kim into third. But McDermott-Mostowy was fast too. His time would have been good enough for bronze, but the American knew it was not to be and accepted his subsequent disqualification.
“I knew it the minute that exchange happened, I felt Dubreuil touch my back, I was like: oh, I was way too close," said McDermott-Mostowy.
"So I just finished the race and really hoped that I wouldn't get a DQ, but I basically knew that it was going to be over.”
Bad luck on the backstretch
After having been lucky when pair-mate Kai Verbij (NED) made way for him on the backstretch at the Olympic Games in Beijing in February, Dubreuil entered a streak of bad luck in the 1000m this season.
“It was a similar bad luck as in Heerenveen (at the World Cup two weeks ago), when Stolz (Jordan Stolz, USA) crashed and I had to kind of stop skating,” he said.
“This time Conor didn't fall, but he thought he had some room and obviously didn't have enough room to go through in front of me.
“At least I was able to dodge the hit, but I had to stand up and move him through and then keep skating. I still had enough legs left to regain my composure and get the win, which was the most important.
“When something like this happens, you forget your race plan and you just go and you push as hard as you can, but you kind of lose the focus a little bit. I don't know how much it affected me timewise, I think I probably had a 1:08 in my legs, but I don't think it would have been a track record.”
Dubreuil (CAN) took a lot of confidence - and three gold medals - from the ISU Four Continents Championships. @ ISU
Dubreuil accepted McDermott-Mostowy’s apology.
“I told him it's OK. No harm, no foul, because I still won. He said: ‘I'm very sorry, but at least you won, I would have felt really bad if you wouldn’t have.’
“I feel bad for him because he had a good race. He would have had a bronze, which would have been a great accomplishment for him.”
The Canadian took away a lot of confidence from the Four Continents Championships, as well as three gold medals in the 500m, the Team Sprint and the 1000m.
“My 500m was one of the good ones this year. It was a very competitive field. Out of all the distances [at the Four Continents Championships] the men’s 500m was the hardest one to win. That was a really, really good race.
“I think if I am like that, I'm going to be difficult to beat the rest of this season.”
Small margin in Team Pursuit
In the men’s Team Pursuit, Korea (Cheon ho Um, Jae-Won Chung and Hojun Yang) edged out Canada (Antoine Gélinas-Beaulieu, Jake Weidemann and Max Halyk) by an 0.34s margin in a time of 3 minutes and 47.17s. China Wang Hongli, Shen Hanyang, and Wang Shiwei took bronze in 3:53.93.
Jae-Won Chung leads his Korea teammates out on the way to gold in the Pursuit, his second win of the weekend. @ ISU
“The Koreans did amazing today,” Gélinas-Beaulieu said. “I knew that they were the team to beat. We did our best, I think we skated very well. Max Halleck needed a little push at the end, so I did the right thing to go behind him to give him the push.
“One tenth of a second is a very small gap for an event like this [Team Pursuit], but we're really proud of our racing.”
Schedule
Friday December 2nd, 2022: 500m (Men and Women), 3000m (Women), 5000m (Men), Team Sprint (Men and Women)
Saturday December 3rd, 2022: 1500m (Men and Women), Mass Start (Men and Women)
Sunday December 4th, 2022: 1000m (Men and Women), Team Pursuit (Men and Women)
Where to Watch
Viewers will be able to watch the races via their national broadcasters’ channel. For countries where there are no broadcasters, the ISU will offer a live stream on the Skating ISU YouTube Channel. You will find the full list on the Where to Watch webpage.
Subscribe to the ISU Newsletter to receive the latest information about events, and to the Skating ISU YouTube Channel to receive notifications when live streams start or new videos are published.
For further information on ISU Speed Skating visit https://www.isu.org/speed-skating
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