Dubreuil takes home bronze at sprint speed skating world championships

Mar 8, 2024 | 4:03 PM

INZELL, Germany — Canadian Laurent Dubreuil took home bronze at the ISU World Sprint Speed Skating Championships in Germany on Friday.

The Levis, Que., native was top of the leaderboard after Thursday’s first two races, finishing first in the 500 metres and sixth in the 1,000 metres. 

He was second in Friday’s 500 but struggled to 17th in the final 1,000 metre race.

Dubreuil’s combined socre put him 1.67 seconds behind winner Zhongyan Ningwith Dutch skater Jenning De Boo finishing second in his world championships debut.

Dubreuil won silver at the 2020 championships and competed in the event in 2022 but was forced to withdraw due to testing positive for COVID-19.

With two career medals to his name, he joins Jeremy Wotherspoon (nine), Gaétan Boucher (five) and Mike Ireland (four) as the only Canadian male skaters to reach the overall podium more than once in the event’s 54-year history.

Fellow Canadians Madison Pearman and Yankun Zhao finished this week’s competition in Inzell ranked 21st and 23rd overall, respectively.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press