Soaking up the moment, a beaming Steven Dubois wasn’t ready to share his feelings on being a first-time Olympic medalist.
“If I think about it I feel like I’m going to cry,” he told Radio-Canada after reaching the short track podium in his Winter Games debut. “I feel once I get the medal, the little box, everything … I can’t wait to celebrate with my teammates.”
Dubois, the unlikeliest medal threat of Canada’s speed skating trio in the men’s 1,500 metres, captured silver in a penalty-filled competition on Wednesday night in Beijing.
The 24-year-old crossed the finish line in two minutes 9.254 seconds to earn Canada’s second silver of these Winter Games and eighth medal overall.
South Korea’s Hwan Dae-heon posted a winning time of 2:09.219 while Semen Elistratov of Russian Olympic Committee (2:09.267) collected bronze at Capital Indoor Stadium.
In the men’s 1,500 final, Dubois started conservatively in the back of the 10-man field, moved to sixth with nine of the 13 ½ laps remaining and jumped to second with eight laps left. In a frenetic final lap, the Canadian held off Elistratov with an outstretched right leg at the line in a photo finish.
“Crossing the line, I knew for sure [I won silver]. You get a really good feeling of where your blade is when you do finishes like this,” Dubois said.
“Once I saw [Elistratov cut to the inside on] the [final] corner I panicked a bit. I knew his finishes [and] his stretches were super good. I had confidence in mine [also and] I just stretched [the leg] as much as I could.”
The 15th-ranked Dubois arrived at the Olympics coming off his first individual medal of the season with silver in the 500 to wrap up the World Cup season in Dordrecht, Netherlands.
Dubois’ spot in the final was unclear after he appeared to lose an edge fell off the pace in the semifinals, but he was given advancement when 2018 silver medalist Sjinkie Kneght of the Netherlands was penalized.
There was no room for error, Dubois noted, in a wide-open final that was also minus China’s Ren Ziwei, this season’s World Cup standings leader, after he delivered an arm block in the semifinals. He was trying for a third podium in Beijing after winning mixed team relay and men’s 1,000 gold.
“There’s no advancement in the finals,” said Dubois, who hails from Terrebonne, Que. “I knew I had to be in front, be protective. I found an easy way to the front [pack]. I followed [Dae-heon] and made sure to protect until the end.
Dubois started skating at the age of 11 or 12, choosing speed skating over hockey because his parents didn’t like the atmosphere in hockey rinks. “I’m happy they made that choice,” he told The Canadian Press. “I don’t think I’m Sidney Crosby, but I still have a silver medal at the Games.
