Canada wins long-track speedskating gold in men’s sprint event at World Cup

NAGANO, Japan – The Canadian men’s long-track speedskating team won gold Saturday in the sprint event at the Nagano World Cup.

Laurent Dubreuil of Levis, Que., Vincent de Haitre of Cumberland, Ont., and Montreal’s Christopher Fiola finished first in one minute 20.52 seconds. Germany took silver in 1:21.27 and Japan won bronze in 1:21.53.

“We won by a lot — by seven tenths of a second — which means we had a very strong race,” Dubreuil said.

It was the first time that Fiola had skated in a World Cup team sprint event.

“I wasn’t expecting to come up with a medal so quickly,” he said. “The team was really good and it was a great race. I was a little nervous considering it was my first team race with those guys, but we worked on a good strategy and they prepared me well so that I knew exactly what to do during the race.”

Earlier, de Haitre finished sixth in the men’s 1,000 metres while Alexandre St-Jean of Quebec City was seventh. Dutch skaters Kjeld Nuis and Kai Verbij had a 1-2 finish ahead of Russia’s Pavel Kulizhnikov.

In the team pursuit, Ted-Jan Bloemen of Calgary, Toronto’s Jordan Belchos and Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., were eighth.

The Netherlands won gold ahead of South Korea and New Zealand.

Competition continues Sunday.