Belgium at the 2026 Winter Olympics: Mass start speed skating
Belgium may not be a traditional winter sports nation, but it left the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing with two medals. It is looking to do even better at the 2026 Games in Milan-Cortina, with several disciplines offering realistic medal prospects. Today, Belga English looks at speed skating.
For Bart Swings, 2025 was not what he hoped it would be. Instead of preparing for the Winter Olympics, the 32-year-old speed skater struggled with a persistent knee injury for much of the year. At one point, he even questioned whether he would recover in time to defend his Olympic gold in the mass start event.
"This has been the toughest year I've experienced in my career," Swings told Sporza in December. "The past six months have been a real struggle. I hoped for a very long time that it would end well, but I kept running into a wall."
Slow recovery
Swings eventually managed to recover after opting for a PRP injection in August, a treatment in which platelets are injected into the knee to stimulate tissue repair. The procedure proved to be a turning point. Following weeks of intensive strength training, he returned to skating without pain and secured qualification for the Olympics.
His improving form became evident at the opening World Cup meeting of the season in Heerenveen, where he set a new Belgian record in the 10,000m with a time of 12:44.75. "I would never have expected this two months ago," he said afterwards. "I now feel that every time I skate it goes better. That does a huge amount of good."
The positive trend continued a few weeks later in Hamar, Norway, where Swings finished second to claim his first World Cup medal of the season. He says that result gave him a lot of motivation and confidence to keep working hard ahead of the Olympics in Italy.
No team pursuit
While Swings has recovered, an injury elsewhere has derailed Belgium's ambitions in the team pursuit. The Belgian trio of Swings, Jason Suttels and Indra Médard finished fifth at this year's World Speed Skating Championships, but Suttels later suffered an ankle fracture and failed to recover in time for the Olympic qualifiers.
"It’s a pity, because the team pursuit was one of the spearheads of my season," Swings said earlier this month. "We are just very unlucky that Jason fell badly. You don't recover from an ankle fracture quickly. We tried to qualify with Mathias Vosté, but unfortunately we have to put the project aside."
With the team pursuit project falling through, Swings is now free to now focus fully on his signature event, the mass start, in Milan-Cortina next year. That could result in the third Olympic medal of his career: he won Olympic gold in Beijing in 2022 and silver in Pyeongchang in 2018.
#FlandersNewsService | © BELGA PHOTO LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ
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