de HAITRE Vincent

General
TWO-SPORT ATHLETE
He represented Canada in speed skating at the Olympic Winter Games in 2014 and 2018. Following the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, he decided to take a two-year break from speed skating to focus on trying to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in track cycling. He still hopes to return to speed skating at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, although the postponement of Tokyo 2020 until 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic means that his turnaround time has been severely reduced. "[For track cycling] I had to pick between the sprint programme, which primarily is anything less than 30 seconds, or the endurance programme, which is four minutes above. I tested well for both. I could have gone in either direction, but I ended up picking the endurance programme because I thought to myself, 'Well, when I want to come back to skating, I'm going to struggle more if I come back from the sprint side'. After the Tokyo Games, I'm hoping I can get like a week or two off. And I've got to get back into [speed skating] pretty quick, because from closing ceremony [in Tokyo] to opening ceremony [in Beijing] is 180 days." (tokyo2020.org, 21 Aug 2020; ici.radio-canada.ca, 23 Aug 2018)