{"id":201186,"date":"2025-10-09T22:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201186\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T22:21:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T22:21:16","slug":"canadas-strate-adjusts-to-new-normal-on-ski-jumping-team-after-strong-season-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/201186\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Strate adjusts to new normal on ski jumping team after strong season start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian ski jumper Abigail Strate poses during a media day organized by the Canadian Olympic Committee in Montreal on Thursday, May 29, 2025.Christinne Muschi\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Abigail Strate feels dialled in, but also missing something as the Canadian ski jumper prepares for the World Cup season and Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

The best summer Grand Prix season of her career \u2014 jumpers land on plastic-coated turf instead of snow \u2014 boosted the 24-year-old Calgarian\u2019s confidence with February\u2019s 2026 Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Strate placed in the top three in five Grand Prix events in August and September, including a victory at the Olympic venue in Predazzo, Italy, and another in Courcheval, France.<\/p>\n

While not all of the world\u2019s top ski jumpers compete in Grand Prix events, they were all in Predazzo to get reps at the Olympic venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on the right track,\u201d Strate stated Thursday in Calgary. \u201cI\u2019m going to keep on the right track and keep doing what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strate returns to Europe on Sunday to the Canadian ski jumping team\u2019s training base in Slovenia. She finds herself in unfamiliar territory, however, without teammate Alex Loutitt.<\/p>\n

Loutitt, the 2023 world and world junior women\u2019s champion, suffered a season-ending knee injury at Predazzo the day after Strate was first and Loutitt fourth in normal hill. <\/p>\n

Loutitt fell upon landing during large hill qualification. Even though Strate qualified second, coaches pulled the Canadian women from large hill so the team could process what happened.<\/p>\n

Strate says she and teammates Nicole Maurer and Natalie Eilers must adapt to a new normal when they reconvene in Slovenia.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada’s Abigail Strate competes at the Women Normal Hill Individual Ski Jumping World Cup event in Villach, Austria, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.Darko Bandic\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hit losing Ali,\u201d Strate said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on such a small team, we rely on each other so much. Everyone\u2019s still digesting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since helping Canada win an Olympic bronze medal in 2022 in the mixed team event, Strate and Loutitt have made the country a women\u2019s ski jumping contender with a combined 18 World Cup medals between them.<\/p>\n

Each is a measuring stick for the other in training and competition. Strate and Loutitt tied for fifth in this year\u2019s world championship normal hill with identical points.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Loutitt described their relationship as \u201csisters\u201d who are competitive with each other, but understand they need each other for success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m at the top of the hill with Ali every time I compete. We\u2019re usually in the same area on the start list, so we\u2019re always high-fiving each other,\u201d Strate said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I have to hold down the fort. It\u2019s not going to change anything that I do in my training. Things have been working for me, so I\u2019m going to keep doing things that work. Now I\u2019m even more \u2019OK, I have to do this for Canada.\u2019 I want to make everybody proud. I don\u2019t want that to be more pressure. I just want it to be more motivational.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hitting her head in a couple crashes early last season rattled Strate. Working with the team\u2019s mental coach restored her confidence in time for the world championship. <\/p>\n

\u201cI confronted that there was a problem there, then started overcoming it. I became brave again, and I think you have to be really brave to do this sport,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Strate says a summer deep dive into all areas of training, on and off the ramp, also seemed to pay off to start this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of just tried to level everything up a little bit,\u201d she said. \u201cI was more involved with the nutritionist, mental coaching, making sure every day I show up to training in the best mental and physical shape I can be in. <\/p>\n

Strate will compete in the last Grand Prix in Germany on Oct. 25 before kicking off the World Cup season Nov. 20-23 in Lillehammer, Norway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s new not having Ali here, it\u2019s new for me maybe having medal potential at a Games. I\u2019ve never had that before,\u201d Strate said. \u201cI\u2019m just going to try to enjoy ski jumping. I love it right now so I\u2019m going to keep doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canadian ski jumper Abigail Strate poses during a media day organized by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-201186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}