Abigail Strate soared to the silver medal at the World Cup ski jumping opener on Saturday in Lillehammer, Norway.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old landed on the World Cup podium for the sixth time in her career. Strate matched her career-best performance on New Years Day in Oberstdorf, Germany nearly two years ago when she also took to the silver medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a bad start. It feels really good,\u201d laughed the colourful Canuck. \u201c I can\u2019t really process that this is the life I\u2019m living right now. I\u2019ve struggled in this sport for so long. I always look at the top athletes with so much awe and now I\u2019m up there regularly with them. Yes, it feels comfortable right now, but it\u2019s insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Calgarian wasted no time serving notice to the world\u2019s top leapers that she means business in the Olympic year. Qualifying in third place with the top-40 on Friday, Strate secured her place on Saturday\u2019s podium after covering distances of 129 and 121 metres, racking up a two-heat total of 259.7 points in tricky conditions in the large hill competition that will make its Olympic debut at the 2026 Games in Milano\/Cortina.<\/p>\n
Hills are measured by the average spot where jumpers are expected to land safely, or where the hill flattens. A normal hill is usually 90 metres and the large hill is 120 metres. Jumps are scored on both distance and style.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy qualifying jump was the best one. I was the most relaxed and calm. In today\u2019s competition there was some stress in the air. I could have opened up and flown a little further, but I\u2019m just trying to put myself in the mindset of training. That\u2019s always the goal \u2013 just focus on the jumps and get them as good as I can,\u201d said Strate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit stressed today, but it is the best feeling in the world to finish a day and say you did a good job and see your coaches smiling and everyone celebrating. It is very fulfilling because I also know the feeling of finishing a day and feeling completely disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was nothing but good vibes for the talented artist in the air and graphic designer on this flight path where she finished behind Japan\u2019s Nozomi Maruyama who took the gold medal with a score of 285.5 points. Austria\u2019s Lisa Eder stormed from behind to claim the final spot on the women\u2019s podium with 255.4 points.<\/p>\n
Strate has been flying in a dream season that began this summer on the Grand Prix circuit. The certified beekeeper was buzzing throughout the summer months where she finished on the podium in all five events she competed in. Her remarkable run included hearing Oh Canada played at two medal ceremonies after winning two Grand Prix events: Courcheval, France and at the 2026 Olympic facility in Val di Fiemme, Italy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe winter is the heavy hitter. You can win whatever you want in the summer, but if it doesn\u2019t add up and deliver in the winter it doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 this is a winter sport afterall,\u201d added Strate. \u201cThere is a stigma in ski jumping that if you do well in summer you won\u2019t in winter. Today was the ice breaker being the first competition of the winter season. I\u2019m really happy it did chalk up today the same way it did in the summer. I\u2019ve never done this before, it is really cool. I feel like the pressure is gone and I can just keep going for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strate has been no stranger to flying to the international podium in bunches.<\/p>\n
She rattled off a string of three consecutive podium performances in 2023-24 \u2013 closing out 2023 with a bronze before ringing in the 2024 New Year with a silver. She completed the medal hat trick with another bronze. Her only other podium finishes of her stellar nine-year career were bronze-medal triumphs last year in Hinzenbach, Austria and in 2023 at an event Hinterzarten, Germany.<\/p>\n
Calgary\u2019s Nicole Maurer was the only other Canadian woman in the field on Saturday. After qualifying for the highest in-run speed out of all of the world\u2019s best women and men combined in both qualifying jumps on Friday with 94 km and 94.2 km\/hour, the aspiring astronaut rocketed to 22nd-place at 205.3 points.<\/p>\n
Neither Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes nor Tarik VanWieren qualified for the men\u2019s final two jumps. The two Calgarians did team up with Strate and Maurer on Friday to place eighth in the mixed team event with 792.4 points.<\/p>\n
The mixed team event, which State and Boyd helped Canada win a bronze medal at the 2022 Olympics, consists of two women and two men. The combined scores of the team are used for ranking. After the first round, the top eight teams advance to the final round.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mixed team was awesome for us. We have Mack who is making his comeback, and Tarik who is a junior experiencing his first ever World Cup as well as Nicole who was in her first mixed team event so there was a lot of new for us and we were just trying to make second round,\u201d said Strate. \u201cWe were sitting in sixth for quite a while. I love the team events. It was cool to watch and celebrate all my teammates doing well and being excited for each other. It was a really good day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team Canada was in seventh place after the opening round of the 15-team event and finished eighth overall.<\/p>\n
Japan won the event with 1,034 points.<\/p>\n
The World Cup continues Sunday in Norway with another large hill competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abigail Strate soared to the silver medal at the World Cup ski jumping opener on Saturday in Lillehammer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[132548,49,48,135078,44,19224,135077,132552,135079,4965,13009],"class_list":["post-300783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-abigail-strate","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lillehammer","tag-news","tag-norway","tag-silver-medal","tag-ski-jumping","tag-strate","tag-womens-world-cup","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300783","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=300783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}