MILAN – Canadian short-track speedskater Steven Dubois was no stranger to the Olympic podium as he lined up for the men’s 500-metre race at the Milan Cortina Games on Wednesday, but there was still one coveted medal out of reach.
Exactly 40.835 seconds later, the 28-year-old from Terrebonne, Que., claimed the individual gold medal he’d been waiting for in a race that saw him take the lead from the start and never give it up.
“It was the one I was missing. I can’t say it’s never been on my mind, but I never wanted to really give myself hope, or make it an objective, because it’s so hard,” Dubois said after the race.
“It’s the toughest thing you can achieve in short track, there’s so much happening. It’s difficult to describe it, honestly.”
Dubois went onto the ice already a four-time Olympic medallist. He won bronze in the same event at the 2022 Beijing Games, where he also won silver in the men’s 1,500 metres and gold in the men’s 5,000-metre relay.
Last week at the Milan Cortina Games, he was part of the team that won silver in the mixed relay. He’d also hoped to add a medal in the men’s 1,000 metres, of which he was the world champion, but he’d fallen in the preliminaries and missed his chance.
Come Wednesday, the big stage of the men’s 500-metre short-track was where he set his sights.
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“I like to rise up to the occasion. There is so much pressure, I like to race conservative and take risks at the right time,” said Dubois. “And the way I race, I have a lot of chances to come back from a bad position, with the start I have.”
Rounding out the podium were Melle van ‘t Wout and Jens van ‘t Wout of the Netherlands, winning silver and bronze, respectively.
On his 26th birthday, Melle van ‘t Wout earned his first medal by finishing just ahead of his brother, who had won both the previous men’s individual events in Milan.
“I had it all planned out for me. I got so many messages from people congratulating me and saying you can make it the best birthday ever. There was a lot of pressure, and I tried not to think about it that way, but I just focused on skating three good races,” said Melle van ‘t Wout.
“That was the main goal of today, also because I love to skate, so that was the goal. I just wanted to skate three times and that this is the result, it is mind-blowing.”
Though he was competing in the same event, Jens, the younger van ‘t Wout, found himself cheering on his brother.
“I think around lap three, when I saw Melle go from five to two, I wasn’t even racing anymore, I was just watching him,” Jens van ‘t Wout said.
“So I wasn’t even in this race for myself; I was just hoping he would stay on his feet. I really had to tell myself not to yell because I wanted to yell at him to go.”
Dubois said he was “conscious of my strengths and weaknesses” while going up against Jens van ‘t Wout.
“I knew the only way to beat Jens was to do a little bit of a controlled start. I took my shot, and it paid off.”
He took the lead early and controlled the pace, slowing the race to blunt van ‘t Wout’s finishing speed.
His tactical decision caused chaos behind him.
Montreal’s William Dandjinou, a pre-Games favourite in three individual events, started fourth and tried to aggressively move through the pack, making contact with the two Dutch rivals before crossing the line fourth but being assessed a penalty that relegated him to fifth.
“I don’t want to say what I expected. I knew that being fourth on the line, if I wanted to win, I had to take some risks, and that’s what I did,” Dandjinou said.
“With (Dubois) starting second on the line, I knew he was going to win. I am super happy for him. I will try to learn from him.”
A two-time reigning Crystal Globe champion on the ISU World Tour, Dandjinou was shut out of the podium in all three individual distances in his Olympic debut.
Maxime Laoun of Montreal fell in the B final and finished eighth overall.
Dubois’s gold marks Canada’s 14th medal of the Games, and fourth at the top of the podium.
Short track concludes Friday with medals in the men’s 5,000-metre relay and women’s 1,500 metres.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press