Niall Treacy has been announced as Team GB's short track speed skater for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.
The 25-year-old made his Olympic debut at Beijing 2022, finishing 27th in the 1,000m and is back for his second Olympics in Italy.
As part of one of the fastest sports at the Olympic Games, Tracey will take to the Milano Ice Skating Arena between 10-20 February.
With the days counting down, get to know Team GB's short track speed skater.
Niall Treacy
DOB: 20/07/2000
Hometown: Henley-in-Arden
Olympic record: Beijing 2022
When Treacy steps onto the ice at Milano Cortina 2026, there will be one of the biggest meetings of his life taking place in the stands.
Treacy is set to marry his partner, Canadian figure skater Renata Wong, in 2026.
And while the Team GB Olympian is focussing on his skating, his parents will be meeting Wong's parents for the very first time, as the two families come together to cheer Treacy on to success.
"I get married in July and my fiancée is still living in Canada currently but will move to the UK in the summer," he said.
"Her and her parents are coming to watch the Games and that will actually be the first time that her parents meet my parents, and I won't be there for it! So I'm a little bit nervous about that.
"Hopefully I can just focus on the competition and she can manage that part."
Unable to control the meeting in the crowd, Treacy will be hoping to control his success on the ice this winter.
The skater competed in the men's 1,000m at Beijing 2022 and after a roaring qualification period this year, now has the opportunity to add the 500m and 1,500m to his repertoire in Italy.
And Treacy noted that the ability to consistently compete on the world stage has been the key to his continued rise.
"It's super exciting," he said. "After Beijing it was always the goal to come back and with more distance so I'm really happy with that.
"Going into Olympic qualifiers, it was very clear what I needed to do. So when I hit the criteria, it was a massive relief since those two months were so stressful.
"To get the phone call from our performance director, who told me I was officially selected was crazy. I had not even really said it to myself by then, so to hear it like that was really nice."
The Olympics being a family affair is something that Treacy is used to, making his debut in Beijing alongside his older brother Farrell.
It meant that the University of Nottingham student was able to lean on expertise and previous experience during his first Olympics, including some well-placed advice that he is keen to now pass on to all the debutants heading out to Italy.
"Farrell and Kat [Kathryn Thomson] had both been to PyeongChang 2018 and they had missed the Opening Ceremony, which was their biggest regret," he said.
"They said they were going to do it this time around and I was racing the next day and they convinced me to do it as well.
"The walk down with the Olympic rings and it saying 'Great Britain' was just so special and it was my fondest memory of the Games."
Since Beijing 2022, Tracey has enjoyed success on the international scene, clinching men's 1,000m European silver in 2024 along with a bronze in the same event on the Beijing leg of the ISU Short Track World Tour.
And with silverware to his name, Treacy is hoping he can use that boost of confidence to take him all the way this February.
"From an individual standpoint, some of the results that I have done over the past year or last year have shown that if I race right, and have that bit of short track luck, then I am in a good position to get a medal," he said.
"The Games is where everyone dreams about the chance of getting an Olympic medal so that will always be in the back of my mind.
But I will need to take it each race as it comes. No one is unbeatable and so I need to use that to my advantage."
Sportsbeat 2025