Don’t stop: Canadian short track champ Steven Dubois pushes through injury toward Olympics

For someone considered one of the fastest short track speed skaters in the world, Steven Dubois was in unfamiliar territory at the beginning of this critical Olympic season.

He had to stop.

The 28-year-old from Terrebonne, Que., skated to four world championship titles for Canada in the spring, but by the summer he was hampered by a leg injury.

“[Pain] was radiating in by the adductor muscle. We spend our time in a bent position, so it was kind of pinching and not very nice in the general [leg] area. It was a bit of a struggle for, maybe, six weeks leading up to the Canadian championships,” Dubois said.

By the time he arrived at that event in late August – the unofficial start of the season – Dubois’ condition deteriorated to the point where he couldn’t race.

“I wanted to try the competition anyway and then the first day we kind of decided it was not really feasible or actually possible to race in my top condition,” he said.

An MRI revealed the extent of his injury: a partial tear in the labrum of his hip. That ring of cartilage lines the hip joint socket and cushions the joint, acting like a rubber seal to connect the thighbone securely within the hip socket. Dubois thought his season – headlined by the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games – was in serious jeopardy.

“I was sad…it was the first actual injury I've had in my career, so I've been pretty lucky with that. I've never missed a competition. I've [fallen], I've been hurt, but not to a point where I actually felt the need to stop,” the three-time Olympic medallist said.

“So, it was a very emotional blow. It took a lot for me to actually stop the competition.”

Dubois will be in action with his Ice Maples teammates this weekend in Gdansk, Poland and next weekend in Dordrecht, Netherlands, but it took a lot of work for him to get back into form.

CBC Sports will stream the short track World Tour events live on the CBC Sports website and on CBC Gem. Full details on when and how to watch can be found on the CBC Sports broadcast schedule.

He began the recovery process with a cortisone shot to reduce inflammation around his hip, but Dubois had to take about two weeks away from on-ice training. When he eventually returned to the rink, he was still forced to alter his training which led to a stressful few weeks as the World Tour season drew closer.

“It was to the point where I wasn't doing any volume on the ice or longer laps I was doing just fast laps…and couldn't do any starts,” Dubois said. “Also, I've just come back from being a world champion in the 500m, and I couldn't do any fast starts or anything specific to work on that.

“It's one of those injuries where it can take a few months and you never know if it's gonna come back. I've never been in a recovery program or anything [before]. So I was scared a bit, and I still feel it now, but it's way more manageable. I know I've dealt with it [at] the competition, so I know I can do it. But it was a stressful few weeks.”