COACH, NATIONAL PROGRAM

Mark Wild

BIOGRAPHY

Mark Wild has been a coach with the Canadian long track national team since 2010 and has been leading the team’s Calgary-based sprinters since 2016.

A skater with Canada’s short track development and national teams from 1998 to 2002, Wild began his coaching career with the Calgary Olympic Oval’s short track program in 2004, before transitioning to a role with their long track program in 2006. In his final season with the Oval, he helped a young Anastasia Bucsis qualify for her first World Cups.

Wild was hired as a member of the Canadian national team program’s coaching staff in 2010, where he worked alongside world-renown coach Xiuli Wang with middle and long distance training groups. During that time, he helped skaters such as Clara Hughes, Kristina Groves and Christine Nesbitt earn multiple World Cup and World Championship medals, and guided Ivanie Blondin to Canada’s first World Championship title in the Mass Start in 2016. He also represented Canada at a pair of Olympic Games, Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014.

Wild took over the Calgary-based sprint group in 2016. He now helps train Olympians Gilmore Junio, Kaylin Irvine, Heather McLean and Marsha Hudey, along with a handful of NextGen skaters.