Quebecer David La Rue won a silver medal in the men’s mass start on Sunday at the Four Continents Long Track Speed Skating Championships in Kitakyūshū, Japan.
Posted at 10:26 a.m.
Updated at 10:44 a.m.
“I’m super happy to have been able to get on the podium with Hayden today. It’s still funny because before the race we were talking about strategy. We told ourselves we were going to wait back and conserve energy, but in the end that’s really not what happened,” La Rue told Speed Skating Canada.
The athlete from Saint-Lambert, who finished ninth in the 1500 m on Friday, was only beaten by the Kazakh, Vitaliy Chshigolev who posted a time of 8 min 22.05 s.
“There was an attack quite quickly and the peloton wasn’t reacting, so I started accelerating on the outside and looked at Hayden, then we took off. We worked together until the end of the race so that the peloton wouldn’t catch up with us. The Kazakh managed to catch up with us. He didn’t really contribute to the group’s effort, but at the same time it’s understandable in the circumstances, that we were two Canadians up front,” he added.
Canadian Hayden Mayeur completed the podium in this event.
Silver medalist in the 500m on Saturday and bronze medalist in the team sprint on Friday, sprinter from Lévis, Laurent Dubreuil, continued his momentum this Sunday by winning bronze in the 1000m.
PHOTO ERICK LABBE, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Laurent Dubreuil won a bronze medal in the 1000 meters.
The 32-year-old athlete, who has two individual medals at the 2024 Four Continents Championships, stopped the clock at 1 min 09.52 sec.
The American Jordan Stolz remained faithful to his habits by climbing for the third time on the first step of the individual podium, in Japan. The Japanese Tatsuya Shinhama was decorated with silver (+0.34 s).
On the women’s side, Quebecer Valérie Maltais concluded her favorite event, that of the mass start, in fourth place on Sunday. The one who won the cumulative ranking of the Long Track Speed Skating World Cup in the mass start event last year, finished with a time of 9 min 24.10 sec.
In the lead throughout the event, it was ultimately her teammate Ivanie Blondin, the American Mon Manganello and the South Korean Parc Ji-Woo who beat her by finishing first, second and third respectively.
The Maple Leaf representatives collected a total of 12 medals this weekend, including three gold, three silver and six bronze. Long track speed skaters will be back in action next weekend at the first stop of the World Cup in Nagano, Japan.
