Wang guided Clara Hughes, Kristina Groves and Christine Nesbitt to Olympic and World Championship podiums from 2002 to 2017
CALGARY, ALBERTA – A familiar face is returning to Speed Skating Canada’s long track high performance program, as former national team coach Xiuli Wang has been hired in the newly created role of NextGen Coach.
Wang brings a wealth of experience to her new position with the National Program, having developed and led top Canadian and Chinese athletes on the international stage for over 20 years, including at six different Olympic Games. In this new role, the 58-year-old will be tasked with supporting the development of NextGen Program skaters based in Calgary by building an enhanced daily training environment that will help them progress along the high-performance pathway and achieve future international success.
A two-time Olympian as an athlete, Wang (Harbin, China) represented her home country at the Olympic Games in 1984 and 1992. She competed on the international stage for eight seasons from 1984 to 1992, including at four ISU World Allround Championships and two ISU World Sprint Championships. Her most notable accomplishment as an athlete was a ninth-place finish at the World Allround Championships in 1990, where she captured gold in the 1500m.
Wang moved to Canada in 1996 and started coaching with the Olympic Oval. She joined Canada’s long track national program in 2002, sparking an incredible run of success for some of the country’s most legendary female skaters.
Her most notable accomplishments as a coach include leading Clara Hughes and Kristina Groves to three individual Olympic medals each between 2002 and 2010, while also helping Christine Nesbitt each two Olympic medals and achieve unprecedented success during the 2011 and 2012 seasons, where she won gold at the World Sprint Championships, captured three World Single Distance Championship titles, and set a new World Record in 1000m (1:12:68). Wang has also coached several other prominent Canadian skaters, including Cindy Klassen, Shannon Rempel, Brittany Schussler, Kaylin Irvine, and Arne Dankers, to name a few.
In recognition for her success on the international stage, Wang received the Coaching Association of Canada’s Jack Donohue Coach of the Year Award in 2006 and was named Speed Skating Canada’s Coach of the Year in five consecutive seasons, from 2005 to 2009.
After leaving to lead the Chinese national long track program in 2017, Wang returned to Canada in 2022 and took on a coaching role with the Olympic Oval in Calgary. She has also lent her coaching and technical expertise to Speed Skating Alberta in recent years, supporting the creation of the AB Hub and AB Hub Academy programs, which provide young skaters with advanced training to help them prepare for a successful transition into the Olympic Oval Program.
Wang’s first competition in her new role, which she officially begins on September 16, will be the 2024 Canadian Long Track Championships presented by Intact Insurance, which run from October 17-20 at the Centre de glaces Intact Assurance in Quebec City.
Quotes
Xiuli Wang, NextGen Coach, Long Track“I hope to bring a new perspective to the National Program. When I returned to the Canadian speed skating system in 2022, I noticed that a lot of the younger skaters were lacking in terms of their technical abilities. Physically, they are quite strong, so we need to work intensively on their technical skills to help them reach the next level. I’m also a big believer in creating an environment where athletes have a strong bond and work together to help one another improve. Those are the kinds of values I want to bring to the NextGen Program.”
Xiuli Wang, NextGen Coach, Long Track“I feel very good about returning to Speed Skating Canada. Under this new leadership team, I believe things are moving in the right direction. Together, we want to build the NextGen Program into something upcoming athletes trust and know will help them achieve future success. As someone that has coached on the international stage for many years, I feel that I will be supported in my work and, as a high-performance program, we will be able to continue making progress and develop a larger number of elite level skaters.”