Skater Dubreuil joins elite company

Laurent Dubreuil skated into an exclusive Canadian club on Friday in The Netherlands, and as luck would have it, founding member Jeremy Wotherspoon was on hand to welcome him.

“He congratulated me,” said Dubreuil, who joined Wotherspoon as the only male Canadian long track speedskaters to win a 500-metre world championship. Dubreuil’s time of 34.398 seconds topped a strong field in Heerenveen, where Wotherspoon was working as a member of Norway’s coaching staff.

“I got a question from the Dutch media,” said Dubreuil. “Are you in the same league, or something like that, and I said absolutely not. That was my first one and I’m 28. By that age he had probably won 50 more races than I did.”

On Friday, previous world champ Pavel Kulizhnikov of Russia was second, with Dai Dai N’tab of The Netherlands collecting bronze.