Canada's Dubreuil wins silver in 500m speed skating at Poland World Cup

Canada's Laurent Dubreuil earned silver in the men's 500-metre speed skating event at the World Cup stop in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland on Friday, marking his 40th career individual distance medal on the international stage.

Dubreuil, 32, a 2022 Olympic silver medallist, continues his strong form after becoming the first Canadian in nearly 20 years to reach the podium at Milwaukee's Pettit National Ice Center last month, where he took bronze in the 500m.

WATCH l Dubreuil impressive with 2nd-place finish:

Quebec's Dubreuil strikes silver as American Stolz wins a 7th 500m World Cup gold medal this season

20 hours ago

Duration 2:49

American phenom Jordan Stolz beat out Laurent Dubreuil of Levis, Que., in a head-to-head race, to win his seventh World Cup speed skating 500-metre gold medal of the season, at the ISU event in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland.

Dubreuil moved into second place in the overall 500m standings with 330 points, giving him a slim seven-point lead over Japan's Tatsuya Shinhama.

Stolz is far ahead in first place with 474 points.

"The race today was a good race. It was hard to stay focused the last 200 metres with Jordan skating away," Dubreuil said. "It was the part of the race that I would like to have back, but he was getting away no matter what."

Dubreuil now has six gold, 20 silver and 14 bronze medals since joining the World Cup circuit during the 2011-12 season.

The speed skater was also won eight career medals (three gold, two silver, three bronze) at the world single-distance championships and has two medals from the world sprint championships.

"I feel quite happy about this 40th medal. It has been a goal of mine for two or three years now," he said.

"After the last Olympics, I challenged myself — I was at 24 medals at that point, and I wanted to shoot for 50. It seemed a bit ambitious back then, but I won seven the year after the Olympics, five last season and I'm at four this season. Winning 50 medals is now the goal."

Fellow Canadians Anders Johnson and Christopher Fiola placed second-last and last, respectively.

Canada also earned four additional top-10 finishes on the opening day of competition in Poland.

The ISU World Cup Speed Skating continues Saturday, featuring women's 1000-metre and 3000-metre, along with the men's 1000-metre and 5000-metre. 

Watch live coverage of the events on CBCSports.ca and CBC Gem. A live streaming schedule is available here.