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Cyclist and Speed Skater Vincent De Haitre is Male Athlete of the Year at Ottawa Sports Awards

by pedalmag.com

January 30, 2015 (Ottawa, ON) – Ottawa’s Vincent De Haitre, who is known in the cycling world as a top track cyclist having represented Canada at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, is also an elite speed skater, and he recently won Male Athlete of the Year at Ottawa Sports Awards for his accomplishments in both sports. De Haitre competed at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in speed skating that is a natural crossover for cycling, as evidenced most notably by Clara Hughes, who scored Olympic medals in both sports.

Vincent De Haître  ©  Guy Swarbrick

Full Ottawa Sports Awards release below.

Speed skating pals De Haitre and Blondin share Male & Female Athlete of the Year honours at Ottawa Sports Awards

They’ve shared the same path the whole way – from their roots with the Gloucester Concordes Speed Skating Club, to their Winter Olympic Games debut in Sochi. And now Vincent De Haitre and Ivanie Blondin are inevitably linked once again, each accepting their first Male and Female Athlete of the Year prizes from the Ottawa Sports Awards.
“It makes it that much more special,” De Haitre says of being honoured alongside Blondin. “Two local athletes from the same club who both move to Calgary, join the national team, reach our goals by making it to the Olympics, and now we’re looking forward to a long road ahead.”
“I couldn’t be happier than to have Vince by my side receiving this award,” Blondin concurs.
“We shared our first Olympic experience together and that was amazing. Now we’re sharing this together again.
“It’s kind of funny, it’s like it’s just not an experience without having my ‘little brother’ there with me.”
Dual-sport dynamo De Haitre recorded the top performances out of Ottawa male athletes at the biggest winter and summer multi-sport games of 2014. At age 19, De Haitre was the youngest member of the Canadian speed skating team at the Sochi Olympics by four years, and also competed for Canada in track cycling at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Now 20, the winner of the city’s top cyclist award set a new national record in the 1,000-metre time trial on the wooden track and then earned a World Cup 1,000 m fourth-place finish back on the ice this past fall.
“Wow. I didn’t see that coming,” smiles De Haitre, reflecting on 2014 as a whole. “I definitely didn’t have certain things as objectives, or I only had them for objectives down the road. It was a year of surprises, and a year of learning.”
Blondin hit a major career milestone by reaching the Olympics, but it was at the end of 2014 that she really blasted off. The 24-year-old is the only Canadian woman to collect medals on the World Cup circuit so far this season. The world’s #1-ranked mass start speed skater won two gold, a silver and a bronze from the four times she raced in her signature event, as well as a 5,000 m bronze.
It was the ninth year in a row Blondin collected either the city’s top short-track or long-track speed skater award, but the first time she claimed the Kristina Groves Female Athlete of the Year Trophy. Before moving to the national team’s home at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Blondin was in the audience on many occasions when now-retired speed skater Groves – Ottawa’s most decorated Olympian of all-time – was named Female Athlete of the Year (in 2004 and from 2006-2010).
“I knew that one day I would love to win that award,” recalls Blondin, stating that her honour carries added meaning since she’s following in Groves’ footsteps. “Kristina’s always been such an inspiring athlete to me, especially coming from the Ottawa region. How mentally stable she was, and how much she pushed herself physically over the limits and still performed extremely well. It’s crazy to look up to someone like her, and it just provided motivation to strive to be as good as she was one day.”
There was no lack of inspirational figures in the sold-out crowd of over 625 as Ottawa’s top athletes in over 60 individual sports, nearly 60 champion teams at the provincial level or higher, and Lifetime Achievement honourees collected their prizes on Jan. 29 at Algonquin College.
The two local university men’s basketball juggernauts split the remaining major male awards, with James Derouin of the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees taking Male Coach of the Year and the Carleton Ravens earning Male Team of the Year for the ninth time in the award’s 12-year history.
The Rachel Homan Curling Rink earned their fourth Female Team of the Year nod in five years, while Special Olympics track-and-field and snowshoeing coach Claudette Faubert was the Female Coach of the Year and James Derouin.
Lifetime Achievement honourees included Paul ApSimon (Coach), Ron Port (Volunteer/Administrator), Laura Knowles (Technical Official), Angelo Gavillucci (Special Recognition), and Lee Powell received the Mayor’s Cup for Outstanding Contribution to Sport in Ottawa from Mayor Jim Watson.
Lacrosse player Frederick Hartley and triathlete Samantha Klus – both University of Ottawa students – were the lucky winners of $1,000 Howard Darwin Memorial Athletic Scholarships sponsored by the Ottawa Nepean Canadians Sports Club.
The complete list of winners is available here.
The 2014 Ottawa Sports Awards banquet program can be viewed here.
Check out our Instagram page for more photos from the event, and follow the Ottawa Sports Awards on Twitter and Facebook.




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