Vincent De Haître (born June 16, 1994) is a Canadian dual-sport athlete competing as both a

speed skater Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. ...

and

track cyclist Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it wa ...

who has been in sport since 2000. After competing at his second Olympic games in PyeongChang De Haître made the switch back over to track cycling where he has been competing as a member of the Canadian national team since the fall of 2018 in an effort to qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. It is expected that De Haître will return to speed skating in August 2021 after the summer Olympics have concluded.

Career

Speed skating

De Haitre started in speed skating competing in the

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

Concordes speed skating club. He looked up to fellow Olympian and Gloucester teammate

Ivanie Blondin Ivanie Blondin (born April 2, 1990) is a Canadian speed skater. She primarily skates in the long distances of 3000 m and 5000 m and the mass start event. Blondin won a silver medal in the mass start event at the 2015 World Single Distance Speed S ...

who would sometime compete at the club in her national team uniform to which De Haître looked at as inspiration. He won a silver medal in the 3000m relay at the 2011 Canada Winter Games and made his

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

debut in 2013. De Haître qualified to compete as a member of Team Canada at the

2014 Winter Olympics , ''Zharkie. Zimnie. Tvoi'') , nations = 88 , events = 98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) , athletes = 2,873 , opening = 7 February 2014 , closing = 23 February 2014 , opened_by = President Vladimir Putin , cauldron = , stadium = Fisht Olympic ...

Sochi Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, by winning the 1000m event at the Canadian speed skating trials and finishing third in the 1500m. Along with the 500m race he set three personal bests by a significant margin to qualify. De Haître was the youngest speed skater for team Canada at the 2014 games and surprised himself by qualifying, he said that he was looking ahead to the 2018 games in PyeongChang and not

. De Haître qualified to compete for

Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics Canada competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from February 9 to 25, 2018. It was the nation's 23rd appearance at the Winter Olympics, having competed at every Games since their inception in 1924. Canada competed in all ...

Cycling

As a junior, he raced for the Ottawa Bicycle Club's Junior Team in both roads and track disciplines coached by Don Moxley, a team which produced several provincially and nationally successful junior cyclists. On the track he won the 1 km time trial at the 2013 Canadian Track Championships over

Zachary Bell Zachary "Zach" Bell (born November 14, 1982) is a Canadian former professional racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2005 and 2015 for the Jet Fuel Coffee–Sympatico, Rite Aid Pro Cycling, , , , , and teams. Born in Whitehorse, Yu ...

. During the 2014 Canadian trials in Aguascalientes, Mexico De Haître broke the Canadian record per kilometre. Also in 2014, De Haître competed at the 2014 Commonwealth games in Scotland where he finished fourth in the team spring and seventh in the per kilometre event.

Personal life

Born in

Cumberland, Ontario Cumberland is a former municipality and now geographic township in eastern Ontario, Canada. It was an incorporated township from 1800 to 1999, when it was incorporated as the City of Cumberland, then ceased to be a separate municipality in 2001 ...

, De Haître attended

École secondaire catholique Béatrice-Desloges École secondaire catholique Béatrice-Desloges (ESCBD, Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School) is a French language high school in the community of Orléans, in the eastern part of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The school also houses a community chi ...

, a catholic French art high school and subsequently attended the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

to pursue a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree while training with Canada`s national long track team.

Personal records

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:De Haitre, Vincent 1994 births Living people Canadian male speed skaters Canadian male cyclists Speed skaters at the 2014 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 2018 Winter Olympics Olympic speed skaters of Canada Cyclists at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Commonwealth Games competitors for Canada Sportspeople from Ottawa World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships medalists Olympic cyclists of Canada Cyclists at the 2020 Summer Olympics