Canadian speedskater Laurent Dubreuil left wondering after missing Olympic podium by three-hundredths of a second

Opinion

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This article was published 12/02/2022 (1330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEIJING Take your phone and find the stopwatch. Start it and stop it, fast as you can. Maybe you can get to nine-hundredths of a second, eight, maybe six. It’s no time at all. It’s nothing.

Except when it’s everything, and that is where Laurent Dubreuil lives this morning, after a 500-metre race in which he was the favourite, or close enough. The Canadian long-track speedskater was the reigning world champion, and hadn’t missed a podium in eight races this season. A 500-metre race is full of tiny moments that make a difference, but he felt he had a chance.

And then Dubreuil crossed the line and the scoreboard flashed fifth, then changed to fourth, three-hundredths of a second off the podium. Nothing, and everything.

“It wasn’t bad enough of a race to make me not believe when I was skating, you know?” said the 29-year-old. “Like I was hoping to see three, two or one on the scoreboard and you know, being three-hundredths off is … it’s a better race than if you’re three-tenths off, but when you’re three-tenths off you’re far enough that you’re not wondering if you could have made it.”

So gold medallist Gao Tingyu of China ran around the infield brandishing a flag and getting a rare cheer from the otherwise somnambulant crowd, and bronze medallist Morishige Wataru of Japan skated around the oval with his flag on his back, and Dubreuil just unzipped his suit and took off his hood and skated around slowly for several minutes dazed, processing. Three-hundredths of a second from an Olympic medal is the kind of thing that could haunt a person.

And this is where Dubreuil was the right person for this. He had talked before this race how having a daughter had changed his life. Speedskating stopped being the most important thing, even for a child of two Olympic speedskaters. He trained less. He went faster. His daughter Rose loved him no matter what he did. He decided that while he wanted to win, and was finally winning, the winning didn’t define him anymore, either.

And this race was the test of that. Dubreuil registered a false start, and maybe that’s why his start was a little slow, just enough. He felt stiff in the second corner, maybe because he was trying to make up for the start. Three-hundredths of a second from an Olympic medal. Oof.

“When I was younger (after losing), food didn’t taste the same and things that I love doing didn’t bring me joy anymore, you know?” said Dubreuil. “But whatever I have for dinner tonight is going to taste how it is normally does. Like I’m totally in a different mindset, so it just makes it easier when it doesn’t go well … I’m already less disappointed than I was an hour ago.

“It’s not an excuse to not do well, right. Like, you still want to show up to the line and do good. But if it doesn’t do good, it’s not that bad.”

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It is strange, meeting a fully realized athlete, even if it does work better if you win. The tough part for Dubreuil was actually the beautiful part, too. CBC links up athletes with their families on TV monitors after events, and there was two-and-a-half-year-old Rose and wife Andréanne. Rose loves when he finishes second, because she’s two. Before this race Dubreuil said, “I’m gone seven weeks now, the Olympics and the world championship after and the World Cup final, seven weeks without seeing my daughter and my wife. So I owe it to them (to) put my heart in it.”

And then he saw them.

“I mean it’s, you know, it’s … ” he said, halting a bit. “It’s tough. I’m looking forward to talking to them more, but talking to them like right there, with the disappointment, it’s tough. You know, it’s not something I necessarily enjoy (but) I’ll get over it pretty quick. It’s just because of my family.”

Laurent Dubreuil could have been the right person to win the race, sure. But he was the right person to lose it, too.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur