Canadian ski jumper Abigail Strate wins summer Grand Prix competition in Courcheval

CBC

6 days ago

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24-year-old from Calgary earns first Canadian ski jump victory since Pretorius in 2012
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Caption: Calgary's Abigail Strate is seen competing during world championships in Norway in February. The 24-year-old from Calgary won a Summer Grand Prix event in Courcheval on Sunday. ()
Canadian ski jumper Abigail Strate won gold at a Summer Grand Prix event Sunday for the first international victory of her career.
The Calgarian finished first on the large HS135 hill with 108.8 points. The result came a day after she took bronze.
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"It is a little upgrade from yesterday," said the 24-year-old Strate. "I'm still kind of overwhelmed with everything going on. I've never heard the Canadian anthem played on the podium for myself, so I was balling my eyes out.
Germany's Selina Freitag took the silver medal with 108.3 points and Japan's Nozomi Maruyama picked up bronze with 105.5.
It was the first victory for a Canadian ski jumper at Courchevel since Alexandra Pretorius won in 2012.
Alex Loutitt was eighth and Nicole Maurer, also from Calgary, was 17th.
Ski jumping is performed in the summer on an in-run where the tracks are made from porcelain and the grass on the slope is covered with water-soaked plastic.
Ski jumpers DQ'd over suits
The right suit can help send a ski jumper soaring to gold. The wrong suit will get you grounded.
Ski jumping faces more controversy with six months to go until the Winter Olympics after the first high-level competition of the new season saw numerous athletes disqualified over ill-fitting suits. The governing body says it's "perfectly normal."
The ski jumping world was rocked in March by the discovery of illegally altered suits on the Norwegian team at the world championships. The International Ski Federation investigated officials and athletes over those changes which could help the wearer soar through the air for longer with the suit's larger surface area.
In Saturday's first event of the 2025-26 season — a summer Grand Prix event on an artificial surface in France — six male ski jumpers were disqualified because of suit issues such as waist size and three more were "not permitted to start." Another jumper from Japan was blocked from competing as the Grand Prix continued Sunday.
The federation told The Associated Press in an e-mailed statement that it's treating the spate of disqualifications as the natural result of tightening up the rules after the Norwegian suit scandal.
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FIS race director Sandro Pertile said he doesn't think anyone was trying to cheat and that fewer disqualifications will occur as teams get used to the rules. Making specialized ski jumping equipment is "a fairly complicated matter," he said.
"It's perfectly normal for teams to need some time to adapt to the new situation after such comprehensive changes to the equipment regulations. Some cope with it straight away, others find it difficult at first," Pertile told the AP.
"It's also important to highlight that these disqualifications are clearly a result of technical inadequacies — there's no sign whatsoever of ill intent from the teams."
FIS indicated that a further nine men and five women didn't compete following a "technical approval" process, though it wasn't clear if all of those cases involved their suits. Five of those 14 were on the United States team, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among those disqualified Saturday was Norway's Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal, who had previously been provisionally suspended earlier this year following the world championships.
FIS signaled it will remain rigourous in its checks through the Olympic season but expects to find athletes wearing increasingly snug — and therefore legal — suits.
"The teams know that they have our full support, and we expect the number of disqualifications to decrease significantly in the coming weeks," Pertile said.
"With that said, we will remain strict and precise with equipment check the whole season long; there is no room for exceptions."