Our remarkable story
The public got to know Hanne (26) and Stijn (25) Desmet - who are sister and brother - during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, thanks to Hanne's bronze medal in the 1,000m short track. Hanne made sports history by becoming the first Belgian woman to ever win a medal at the Winter Games. Stijn was not far behind, and a few weeks later he won 2 bronze medals at the World Championship in Montréal.
With this, Hanne and Stijn have proven that they most definitely belong to the world top of their sport. Both Hanne and Stijn got European Gold in 2023 and Hanne even got Olympic Bronze in 2022.
Stijn was the first to start with short track, and was always the more agile one of the two. For Hanne, the passion for short track speed came much later. When they moved to Hasselt 10 years ago to really focus on the sport, few believed in the project. Being persistent wins. Hanne and Stijn, born and raised in Mechelen, lived the last years in Heerenveen in the Netherlands, where they trained on a daily basis with the highly regarded Shorttrack TeamNL. But now they are ready for a new adventure: they’ll move to North-America and Canada for a long training period.
When Stijn and Hanne are not on the ice or at the gym, they spend their time studying. Hanne studies Commercial Engineering and Stijn Industrial Engineer, both at Hasselt University. But the business world will have to wait for now. Being European champion is great, but Stijn and Hanne’s sights are set on the higher things; World Championships in 2024 in Rotterdam and of course the Olympics in 2026 in Milan.