PIERRE LAFONTAINE – AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CEO OF CYCLING CANADA
On January 1st of this year, Pierre Lafontaine took on the role of CEO at Canada’s national cycling federation, Cycling Canada. He inherits the position from Greg Mathieu, who retired following a term of almost eight years. During Mathieu’s tenure, Canada’s high performance program experienced tremendous growth, particularly on the track, and now has a national training centre at the Milton velodrome, as well as a mountain bike centre in Victoria. Canada won two medals at the 2016 Olympics and nine medals at the Paralympics.
Lafontaine comes to cycling from cross-country skiing and, before that, swimming. “My original world was swimming. I started in a suburb of Montreal with the Pointe Claire Swim Club in the late ’70s, where I was a club coach while at university. I was also quite involved with a disabilities program we had at the club, for kids with Down’s Syndrome and autistic learning disabilities.”
Lafontaine continued to move up through the coaching ranks, taking a position with the University of Calgary as the assistant coach for four years, where they became the number one club in Canada. He worked with Olympic coaches and managed national team projects, before moving to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1988 to join the Phoenix Swim Club.
“By 2000 we had 12 kids on the Olympic team and eight medals at the Olympics [3 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze] and I was approached by the Australian Swimming Federation, to become the assistant coach at the Australian Institute of Sport [AIS]. In 2001 the head coach left and I was offered the job.”
Lafontaine stayed in Australia until 2005, when he was headhunted by Swimming Canada, becoming the national coach and CEO to begin rebuilding the program that had won no medals in 2004. During his tenure there until 2013, Canada won one Olympic medal in 2008, three in 2012, plus another six in Rio last year. At the three Paralympics, swimming took a staggering 47 medals.
“When I came in, in 2005, I basically redesigned the ten year plan. But after the 2012 Games, I had been at it [swimming] for 40 years, and I felt that I needed to use my energy for something else. I worked for a short time to help redevelop the University sports system [formerly Canadian Interuniversity Sport, now University Sport], which was a great experience, and not long after I was offered the position [of CEO] with Cross-country Skiing.”
However, Lafontaine found the logistics of being in Canmore, Alberta, for his job while his family was based in the Ottawa region was just too difficult, and was thrilled when presented with the opportunity to work with Cycling Canada.
“I feel cycling is an iconic sport in Canada, it’s a growing sport, it is a sport for all. Plus it was based in Ottawa, so I thought that all these things meant the stars were aligning for me to come back to Ottawa. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to help grow the sport in Canada.”
Lafontaine feels that, “I have two roles here; the first is to support national high performance programs and figure out what needs to be done to be among the best in the world. The other role is to put more people on bikes, so that we become Cycling in Canada and not just Cycling Canada.”
“I think there are four sports in Canada that should be the base sports. One is to be swimming … as a parent, if your kids know how to swim then there is a new world open to them. I also think cycling opens a world; there’s a rite of passage when a dad or mom teaches a child to ride their bike. There is a whole world of independence when you can ride your bike to the pool, or the park, or your friend’s house; you become this independent person. So, to me, in the summer you are looking at cycling and swimming, and in the winter you are looking at skating and skiing.”
“I am excited that I can help the national program. My world has been high performance, but my social world is also about getting Canadians more active, and getting 35 million Canadians as proud as hell of the performance of our national team. Yes, we are in the cycling business, but we are in the people business. We are about building leaders, we are about building ambassadors for Canada.”
Lafontaine believes that besides high performance there is an important development role for Cycling Canada. “How can we get more kids on bikes? What can we do about bike safety? There is an advocacy role; for bicycle trails and routes. When I lived in Australia, my kids could ride their bikes 12 kilometres to their gym and they only had to cross two roads; there were tunnels underneath everything else.”
Lafontaine sees a key component of his role as helping create the structure to make “Canada one of the best cycling nations in the world. Why can’t we be there?”
In terms of high performance, Lafontaine recognizes that track cycling accounts for 10 of 18 Olympic events, however, “if you look around the world, road cycling is front and center. And not just the Tour de France and the [WorldTour] races in Quebec and Montreal; it’s the gran fondo tours and all the popular rides. The road aspect of cycling is a brand that we need to find a way to support more.”
Lafontaine agrees that this is not something Cycling Canada can do alone. “The sum of people, from the provincial bodies, to the cycling communities … part of our work is to bring people together, to find the Canadian answers. I feel my role in the next four, to eight, to 12 years, is to build a structure so that we don’t win by luck; there is a system, from the local clubs to the provincial bodies to the all-star team. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of passionate people around the country in cycling. I just have to slowly bring everybody back to a family.”
“We are looking now at our strategic plan going towards 2020, and I said to our staff that the 2024 athletes are already on bikes and the 2028 athletes are mostly on bikes, so we need to work on the plan for these athletes now.”
