{"id":382963,"date":"2026-01-02T06:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382963\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:12:12","slug":"canadian-ski-jumper-abi-strate-captures-1st-career-world-cup-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382963\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian ski jumper Abi Strate captures 1st career World Cup gold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian ski jumper Abi Strate started the new year with a bang by soaring to her first career World Cup victory on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old from Calgary captured gold on the large hill in Oberstdorf, Germany with 268.2 points.<\/p>\n<p>Strate topped China\u2019s Zeng Ping by 10.5 points. Zeng landed in second with 257.7 points, followed by Germany\u2019s Selina Freitag with 257.3.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has been my dream since I can remember. I didn\u2019t know if it would ever happen, but I have always been chasing it. I frickin\u2019 did it,\u201d said Strate, who was second in Oberstdorf two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe German hills seem to agree with me. The first training jump today I was third. I had zero problems. The inrun is very important to me and this one is just perfect for me to find that comfortable position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>WATCH | Strate wins gold in Germany:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767334332_800_default.jpg\"  alt=\"\" class=\"thumbnail\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"video-item-title\">Calgary&#8217;s Abigail Strate earns her 1st World Cup ski jumping victory<\/p>\n<p>Abigail Strate started the New Year by claiming her first World Cup ski jumping victory in Oberstdorf, Germany.<\/p>\n<p>After a seventh-place finish Wednesday in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Strate credited the support of her Slovenian-based coaching team for leading her to the eighth World Cup podium of her career and third of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday was a bit surprising for me. I think I have been struggling a bit this winter to be as relaxed because I likely felt a bit of pressure, especially after the two early season podiums, and was chasing it rather than being present in the jumps,\u201d Strate said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe coaches and I had made a plan that maybe we\u2019d go back to training and find the good jumps, but just being connected with them and talking things through with the coaches completely chilled me out today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strate carried a sizeable 15-point lead into the final round with the elite 20 after posting the jump of the day, covering 136 metres while earning 146.1 points on her first attempt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first round was insanely good. It was one of those jumps where everything came together,\u201d Strate said. \u201cI had been struggling in my inrun position, but we made a plan to think about it less. I hit the take-off perfectly. I didn\u2019t do anything crazy or stressful in the air and flew it down there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was in a bubble today. I didn\u2019t even realize what was going on. I\u2019ve never led a World Cup before. I never had such a lead in a World Cup, but I felt really comfortable in that position. I like it up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Strate won two silver medals earlier this season in big hill jumping in Lillehammer, Norway and Wisla, Poland, and an Olympic test event this past September in Predazzo, Italy.<\/p>\n<p>She was part of Canada\u2019s historic Olympic bronze-medal winning foursome in the mixed team event in Beijing in 2022. The\u00a0large hill competition will make its Olympic debut at Milano-Cortina in February.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH | Strate earns silver in Lillehammer:<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767334332_24_default.jpg\"  alt=\"\" class=\"thumbnail\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"video-item-title\">\u200bCanada&#8217;s Strate captures World Cup ski jumping silver medal in Lillehammer<\/p>\n<p>Calgary&#8217;s Abigail Strate claimed her second career World Cup ski jumping silver medal Saturday in Lillehammer, Norway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-382963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382963","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=382963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}