Bart Swings

Bart Swings (BEL), born 12 February 1991 in Leuven, took up roller speed skating at age eight and began speed skating on ice in 2010. He has represented Belgium in roller speed skating, claiming 40 medals (19 gold, 11 silver, 10 bronze) across eight editions of the world championships between 2009 and 2023, and has won seven medals at The World Games, four of them gold, including two golds at Wroclaw 2017 and three roller titles at Birmingham 2022. He held the world record in 10,000 m inline speed skating and won the Berlin Marathon inline title for five consecutive years as of 2018. On ice he won silver in the first Olympic mass start at PyeongChang 2018 — the first Belgian medal at a Winter Olympics in 20 years — and gold in the mass start at Beijing 2022, becoming the first Belgian speed skater to win Olympic Winter Games gold and the first athlete from any sport to win gold at both the Olympic Winter Games and The World Games. In 2023 he became the first Belgian speed skater to win a world championship gold medal with the mass start title at the World Single Distances Championships in Heerenveen. He is coached by Jelle Spruyt and is based in Heerenveen, Netherlands.