Three months after concluding the Tokyo Olympics in track cycling, Vincent De Haître is preparing to take a new step in his bet to compete in the Beijing Games in long track speed skating.
The Ottawa athlete will line up in the 1000m World Cup in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland, on Sunday.
At his first international competition on ice since the PyeongChang Games in February 2018, he won’t have to look far to gauge his progress. “My target is Laurent Dubreuil,” he said Wednesday.
A bronze medalist over the distance at the last World Championships, the Quebecer won the national title last month in Calgary, edging runner-up De Haître by eight tenths of a second.
“Laurent has reached a level of performance that I had before stopping speed skating,” recalled the one who still holds the national mark over the distance and who was vice-world champion in 2017.
PHOTO JEFF MCINTOSH, ARCHIVES THE CANADIAN PRESS
Vincent De Haître
My goal will be to reach that level and be even better. Laurent would say the same thing. Yes it is good, but the goal is always to improve.
Vincent De Haître
For the moment, De Haître must moderate his ardor. His back is painful and he suffered a strained groin during the 1000m at the Canadian Championships.
“Confidence comes and goes, it depends on the day. Right now, most of our energy is focused on injury prevention. […] Physically, I’m strong enough, but it’s the joints, like my back, groin, the parts that hold it all together, that are of concern. It doesn’t matter how big your engine is, it won’t work if your wheels are made of wood! ”
In the footsteps of Dufour and Harvey
The postponement of the Tokyo Olympics never called into question his plan to line up back-to-back with the Summer and Winter Games, even though the period between the two opening ceremonies was reduced to 181 days . Bob Dufour, the last Canadian rider and skater to double in 1968, had had about 60 more since the Mexico Games were held in the fall. In 1984, Pierre Harvey had only benefited from 160 days between the Games in Sarajevo (cross-country skiing) and those in Los Angeles (road cycling).
De Haître has hardly taken a break for a year and a half. At the end of the training camps at the velodrome in Milton, Ont., He returned home to Calgary to continue his speed skating preparation. The challenge was heightened last year when the Olympic Oval closed due to a mechanical problem. He transported his blades to the outer ring of Red Deer, where the mercury sometimes dropped below -30 ° C.
The particular biomechanics of skating make the return more complex than if it had to regain its pedal stroke. “It’s not a sport you can do just for fun. It takes a whole preparation phase. This is what I am learning at the moment. My body just isn’t ready. There are times when I shine and there are times when I feel like I can’t skate. ”
Surprisingly, the 27-year-old already considers himself better technically than when he put his skates away.
The coaches are very happy with my progress. I am ahead of my goals. We are aiming for bigger ones, but we must remain realistic. There are days when I can’t skate and we have to change the training.
Vincent De Haître
In an ideal world, he would rank among the top eight at the end of the four World Cups to secure his place at the Olympics. Otherwise, there will still be the Olympic selections in Quebec at the end of December. “You have to remember that the important thing is not to perform well at the World Cups, but to perform at the Games. ”
Convinced that he is not yet at his peak, he cherishes the idea of a return to cycling. Only, it will not be in the team pursuit, where he believes he achieved his goals by finishing fifth in Tokyo. Attracted by the sprint events, he points out that he holds a national record during a test carried out in the laboratory.
PHOTO FROM THE CANADIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE WEBSITE
Vincent De Haître, during the Olympic Games in Tokyo, in the summer of 2021
Fourth in the kilometer time trial at the 2020 Worlds, De Haître would like to compete in this non-Olympic event at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in the summer of 2022.
Until then, he still has a lot of skate strokes to give. “There are days when I wake up and wonder if it’s still going to be possible. But I have a plan and I’m sticking to it. According to the motto of Pierre de Coubertin, “the main thing is not to have won, but to have fought well”. This is what I do the best I can. I have never pushed myself so much physically and mentally. ”