Canadian speed skaters Ivanie Blondin and Laurent Dubreuil claimed silver medals on Sunday at the final stop of the long track World Cup tour in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
The 32-year-old Dubreuil secured second place in the men’s 500-metre standings with a time of 34.51 seconds in the season’s final race, just 0.05 behind Kazakhstan’s Yevgeniy Koshkin .
Dubreuil edged Dutch favourite Jenning de Boo by 0.01 seconds.
WATCH l Dubreuil takes silver in 500m:
Laurent Dubreuil of Levis, Que., won silver on Sunday at the ISU World Cup speed skating event in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
“It was a good race and I’m really happy. I would have loved to win gold, and I was pretty close, only 0.05 seconds off,” Dubreuil said in a press release. “I am starting to feel a bit of fatigue from a full season of racing. I didn’t open as quickly as I could or as quickly as I did in previous weeks, but I’m still skating very well.
“I was happy to be able to have a good lap and pick up some good speed, even if my legs were a bit less explosive than last week.”
Dubreuil, who hails from Lévis, Que., finishes the season with 476 points in the distance. He won a pair of silvers last week in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland.
American star Jordan Stolz topped the standings with 568 points.
“Finishing second in the overall rankings is good. And winning six 500m medals in one season, despite dealing with an injury in the fall, makes this one of my best seasons,” Dubreuil said.
The two-time Olympian has won 42 career World Cup medals (6 gold, 22 silver, 14 bronze), along with a silver medal from the 2022 Beijing Olympics and 10 world championship medals.
Ottawa’s Blondin, 34, ended her World Cup campaign on a high note, earning a second-place finish behind two-time mass start world champion Marijke Groenewoud of the Netherlands.
Groenewoud’s time of 8:27.52 was a mere 0.02 seconds faster than Blondin’s in the 16-lap race at Heerenveen’s Thialf oval.
Blondin made a courageous move on the inside corner heading into the final lap, catapulting her into the lead. She appeared destined for her first mass start victory of the season until Groenewould turned it up down the stretch, edging the three-time Olympian at the line.
Mia Manganello of the United States captured the bronze medal with a time of 8:27.62.
WATCH l Blondin claims mass start silver:
Ivanie Blondin won the silver medal in the women’s mass start finishing .02 seconds behind Dutch skater Marijke Groenewoud at the ISU World Cup speed skating event in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
“I feel pretty good about the mass start,” Blondin said. “I picked a tight line coming out of the last corner and kind of fiddled my way through. Marijke just had more speed coming from the outer lane. It was a really tight finish, but exciting that way. I was really happy with my performance.”
It was Blondin’s third mass start medal of the season after winning bronze last week in Poland and a silver earlier this year in Nagano, Japan.
Blondin, the top-ranked Canadian in the event, placed fourth in the standings with 223 points. Groenewoud finished in top spot with 340 points, 93 more than the second-ranked Manganello.
Blondin and teammate Anders Johnson of Burnaby, B.C., later placed fifth in the mixed relay to close the day.
Canada’s long trackers will next compete at the world single-distances championships in Hamar, Norway, from March 13-16.
Watch live coverage of the world championships on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem. A live streaming schedule is available here.