BEIJING — Laurent Dubreuil was on the wrong end of the instant that determines who wins an Olympic medal in speedskating's 500 metres and who doesn't.
The Canadian finished three-hundredths of a second off the podium Saturday in fourth. The reigning world champion grimaced when he crossed the Ice Ribbon's finish line and glanced up at his time.
"I was hoping to see three, two or one on the scoreboard," Dubreuil said. "It was a good race. It just wasn't good enough.
"Being in the 500, you've got to live with that. If you look at all the other races at the Olympics so far, the gap between third and fourth isn't that small, but that's to be expected.
"Sometimes you're on the good side of that small margin. Sometimes you're on the wrong side of it. Today, I was a tiny bit not good enough."
China's Gao Tingyu threw down an Olympic-record 34.32 seconds in the seventh of 15 pairings. The men who followed failed to beat it, making Gao the host country's first speedskating champion.
South Korea's Cha Min Kyu was second in 34.39, Japan's Wataru Morishige took bronze in 34.49 and Dubreuil finished in 34.522.
Dubreuil has skated a 34.31 at sea level during his career, so he felt Gao's time wasn't unbeatable.
Skating in the final pairing alongside Japan's Tatsuya Shinhama, Dubreuil on the inside lane was charged with a false start. A second would have meant disqualification.
The 29-year-old from Lévis, Que., refused to use that as an excuse, saying "it's something that's totally possible to overcome. It's just a minor inconvenience. That was not the difference."Â
His opening 100 metres tied for second-quickest among the top five men, but Dubreuil's coach Gregor Jelonek didn't dismiss the mental impact of a false start.
"In my mind as a coach, a false start is always one-tenth (of a second) that goes away," Jelonek said. "His start was good, but not great. After that, I thought in the back stretch he was a bit tight, not as fluid as you can be.Â
"When he entered the last corner and the last straightaway, I thought he was skating very well."
An Olympic men's 500-metre crown remains elusive for Canada despite having elite racers in the event.
Three-time world champion Jeremy Wotherspoon stumbled in 2006 and couldn't put together fast laps four years later when the event was a combination of two races.
Close to a medal, but not close enough, was a different kind of sting for Dubreuil.
"For sure now he's disappointed," Jelonek said. "Finishing fourth at the Olympics is the worst place to finish, but when you think back, you say 'oh I was right there, you know?'"
Dubreuil races the 1,000 metres Friday. He was a bronze medallist at last year's world championship, but admitted his chances at an Olympic medal were better Saturday.
"I've got a race in six days so I can live with my disappointment for a day maybe, but I've got to quickly turn it around for the thousand," he said. "I think I've got an outside shot at the podium in the thousand."
Since finishing mid-pack in the 2018 Olympic Games, Dubreuil married and had a daughter. The life balance having a family gives him also helped put Saturday's miss in perspective for him.
"My mindset has shifted. Before, a bad race, my life is in shambles," he explained. "Now, it's I didn't get the result I wanted. That's sport. That's life. You can't win all the time and it's extremely tough to win a medal.
"I was happy in life yesterday and I'm going to be happy in life tomorrow."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2022.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
