COACH, NATIONAL PROGRAM

Bart Schouten

BIOGRAPHY

Bart Schouten has been a coach with Canada’s long track national team since 2010, working primarily with the team’s Calgary-based middle and long distances male skaters.

A native of the Netherlands, Schouten transitioned from skating to coaching as a teenager. He worked his way up from the grassroots and regional levels to the professional ranks, before taking his talents overseas to join national team programs in the United States (1995-2006) and Germany (2006-2010). He became part of the Canadian national team program’s coaching staff following Vancouver 2010.

Schouten has coached at six different Olympic Games over the course of his career, helping over a dozen athletes reach the podium, including Canadians Denny Morrison at Sochi 2014 and Ted-Jan Bloemen at PyeongChang 2018. He has guided skaters such as Graeme Fish, Jordan Belchos, Vincent De Haître, Olivier Jean, and Ivanie Blondin to World Championship medals, and was also a part of recent world record setting performances from Bloemen (5000m and 10,000m) and Fish (10,000m).

Schouten was named Coach of the Year by Speed Skating Canada in 2017 and has been recognized numerous times with Coaching Excellence Awards from the Coaching Association of Canada.