Laurent Dubreuil was unable to resist tornado Jordan Stolz, placing fifth in the second 500 meters at the Speed Skating World Cup in Quebec, while his American rival raced to his fourth gold medal of the competition, Sunday afternoon.
As a result, the Quebec skater failed in his attempt to dislodge Wataru Morishige, sixth, at the top of the season cumulative over the distance. With 483 points, the Japanese finished first, followed by Dubreuil, with 466 points.
In the last pair, Dubreuil did not have the best of Stolz on the first 100 meters, then offering himself in the spotlight in the opposite straight, which favored the 19-year-old world champion, who came out first in the ‘final turn inside. Stolz maintained his lead to stop the time 34.36 sec, one hundredth better than the track record established by his Quebec counterpart in October 2022.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Jordan Stolz
Poles Marek Kania (34.69) and Piotr Michalski (34.72) won silver and bronze, in order.
Fifth, the crowd favorite clocked 34.81 sec, 21 hundredths faster than the day before, when he won silver. A victory would have allowed him to surpass Morishige in the general classification and win a third consecutive title in his favorite event.
A personal high for Maltais
A little earlier, Valérie Maltais continued her momentum by finishing just off the podium in the 1500 meter event.
PHOTO RICK BOWMER, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Valérie Maltais
Bronze medalist in the 3000 m on Friday, the skater from La Baie clocked a time of 1 min 57.13 over half the distance, a personal best on the ice at the Gaétan-Boucher oval, her training venue. His fourth place is also a high for the 33-year-old athlete in this event on the circuit. It far exceeds its 10e position from Salt Lake City last week.
The Dutchwoman Joy Beune won gold in 1 min 55.50, ahead of the silver medalist, the Chinese Mei Han, by almost a second, who pushed the Quebecer to the outside of the podium, in the front -last pair. Beune matched the track mark set by Canadian Ivanie Blondin in 2022.
The Dutchwoman Melissa Wijfje got her hands on bronze thanks to a slightly better finish than Maltais.
Blondin was in third place at the start of the last loop, but she ultimately finished eighth in 1 min 57.78.
Maltais and Blondin will meet at the end of the afternoon for the group start event, where they respectively occupy first and second place overall for the season, with a slim gap of three points in favor of the Saguenéenne.