Barrett Martineau

Biography

Barrett Martineau had his dreams of competing for Canada kick into high gear during Turin 2006 when his parents allowed him to skip school to watch Nordic combined teammates and friends Jason Myslicki and Max Thompson compete. It was seeing them sitting at the top of the ski jump that he knew he wanted to make his Olympic dream a reality. He had started training for Nordic combined in 1998, spending 12 years ski jumping and cross-country skiing, including four years on the national team and four appearances at the world junior championships. He also served as a forerunner for ski jumping at Vancouver 2010.

But after watching Jon Montgomery win gold there, he was inspired to transition into skeleton. Instead of training his slow twitch muscle fibres with 25km runs multiple times a week, he now had to train his fast twitch muscle fibres with 25m sprints. He entered his first international skeleton race, a North American Cup race, in March 2012. Returning to the circuit fulltime in 2012-13, he stood on the podium in eight of nine races. He also won the bronze medal at the 2012 World Junior Championships. In 2013-14 he began competing on the Intercontinental Cup circuit before moving to the World Cup circuit in 2014-15. Through the 2016-17 season, his career-best result is an eighth-place finish which he has posted three times, most recently in January 2017. Martineau finished 24th in his Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018.

A little more about Barrett…

Getting into the Sport: Fell in love with skeleton from the first moment he slid down the track at Canada Olympic Park… Outside Interests: Pursuing a Bachelor of Business and Administration at Mount Royal University… Has had a dream since he was 16 to be a fire fighter… Odds and Ends: One of his main sources of inspiration is ski jumping coach Jindro Mayer who taught him manners, respect, dedication and how to be a well-rounded person; Mayer passed away in a car accident when Martineau was 13 and he is now trying to fulfill the Olympic dream they started together…