CALGARY — Laurent Dubreuil says his bad races still have to be good in order to defend his World Cup speedskating title in the men's 500 metres.
The Canadian sprinter placed third Saturday just three hundredths of a second back of victor Kim Jun-Ho of South Korea in Calgary's Olympic Oval.
Dubreuil is the reigning World Cup champion in the 500.
He's won twice and has yet to to finish off the podium in four races to start this season to top the standings again.
"You need your worst race to be really good is how to win the overall," Dubreuil said.
"Now I'm good enough that a bad race is third, maybe fourth and that's how you win a season title. It's showing up every week and getting points."
Kim collected his first win this season in a time of 34.07 seconds. American teenager Jordan Stolz's 34.08 for second broke his own world junior record.
Dubreuil's 34.10 was nine-hundredths of a second slower than his winning time a week earlier in the first of back-to-back World Cups in Calgary.
He felt the toll of racing five weeks out of six, including travel to Norway and the Netherlands to start the season.
"It was actually a good race," Dubreuil said. "I just didn't have as much punch as I had maybe a month ago.
"I think I'm just tired from the whole fall season. I felt very sluggish this week.
"It's still by far the best fall season of my career."
World Cup racing takes a break after Sunday and concludes in February with two stops in Poland.
The world championships follow March 2-5 in Heerenveen, the Netherlands.
Dubreuil claimed last season's 500-metre crown by winning just two of 10 races, but never finishing lower than fourth in the remainder.
The 30-year-old from Lévis, Que., races the 1,000 metres Sunday. He's the season leader in that distance as well.
Dubreuil was second last week in Calgary and owns an Olympic silver medal in it.
"That was one of the big goals of the season for me, was to win the overall and to win the overall in the thousand as well, which I've never done," Dubreuil said. "I'm on track to do it.
"The thousand, we'll see how about tomorrow. I feel tired, but we'll see what I have left. I bet a lot of the guys feel tired as well. I don't think I'm the only one."
Ottawa's Ivanie Blondin, Carolina Hiller of Prince George, B.C., and Calgary's Brooklyn McDougall were second in the women's team sprint behind the United States and ahead of the Netherlands in third.
The Canadians picked up their second silver medal in as many races this season.
Three skaters from each country start the three-lap team sprint and go head to head against three skaters from another country on the track.
One skater drops out after each of the first two laps leaving one middle-distance specialist striving for the finish line.
The Canadian women trailed the Dutch in the final pairing, but Blondin brought home a fast final lap to vault the hosts into second place — five hundredths of a second back of the U.S.
"I'm not a fast sprinter like these two girls, so I really have to chase to try and stay on them," Blondin.
"We're getting used to skating with each other and I think we're just making those right steps. It was really close for a gold medal."
Calgary's second World Cup concludes Sunday with the men's and women's 1,000 metres and mass starts.
Japan's Miho Takagi won a second straight women's 1,500 metres Saturday for her third victory in four races this season.
Davide Ghiotto of Italy was first in the men's 10,000.
Calgary's Ted-Jan Bloemen, who sat out the season's first two World Cups because of the birth of his son, posted the fastest 10k time of the day skating in a B Division race.
The 10k field is capped at 12 skaters. Bloemen wasn't ranked high enough to compete in the A Division.
Bloemen broke his own oval track record with a time of 12 minutes 33.75 seconds, which was quicker than Ghiotto's 12:45.1 and just three seconds off a world record.
"I was so determined so show everything I had for this race," said Bloemen, the 2018 Olympic champion in the 10k.
"This was a really well-executed race and really a validation that I've still got it at 36 years old."
Stolz, who is just 18, was the winner of Friday's 1,500 metres.
Dubreuil predicts the American is on the verge of speedskating stardom.
"He's much more talented than me, so I think it's just a matter of time until I don't win any more," Dubreuil said.
"To win medals in the 500 and the 1,500 on the same weekend — and he's the favourite for tomorrow's thousand for sure — it's something only a few skaters have done in their absolute prime and he's doing it at 18.
"I think he's the most talented skater of the last 40, 45 years."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2022.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
