Kirsty Muir relishing crack at second Winter Olympics after serious knee injury
Kirsty Muir starred as Great Britain's youngest competitor at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing before jetting straight home to finish her Highers at school just outside Aberdeen.
Then aged just 17, the freestyle skier had dazzled on her debut, reaching the finals of both her events and placing fifth in the women's Big Air competition, behind the all-conquering Chinese superstar Eileen Gu.
Yet three years on, Muir regards her experience in Beijing as a distant memory – hardly surprising given the obstacles she has faced in her quest to reach her second Games in Milan and Cortina, which get under way on February 6 next year.
Muir returned to top-level competition this month for the first time in over year, having spent the entirety of 2024 on the sidelines after rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament in a crash in December 2023.
Two surgeries and 14 months later, Muir marked her return by reaching the final of the women's slopestyle competition at the World Cup in Aspen, Colorado.
'It was really difficult to be away from the circuit for such a long time and I missed so many of my friends, but these sort of setbacks give you the motivation to push through and get back to where I want to be,' Muir told the PA news agency.
'I only got back on skis in November last year and started in the park the following month. I went to Aspen with the mindset of enjoying myself and not having expectations. It was great to feel all those comp nerves again and it was a real confidence boost to make finals at the first attempt.'
Muir is no stranger to the big occasion, having won a series of junior medals including silver at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, then gone on to land a pair of prestigious X Games gold medals at the 2023 competition on the back of her Beijing breakthrough.
Her success was all the more impressive given the need to juggle her schedule around her ongoing education, and she admits the prospect of a homework-free build-up to Milan and Cortina will allow her to place extra focus on nailing new medal-worthy tricks and routines.
'It's different now not having to go home from training and get to school and having all that extra stress,' the 20-year-old said. 'I'm glad I did it so that I could get some good results for whatever I want to do in the future, but it's so good just to be able to focus on my skiing now.
'I feel like since Beijing I've grown up and progressed more with the sport, I travel and ski full-time now, and I feel I've found my place in the sport alongside all my friends.
'I'm really in the zone where I just want to go and enjoy myself and I think the next Olympics will feel 100% different. My family will be able to come out there, it won't be in Covid, and there will be a lot of positives but I will have the experience of Beijing to help me along.'
Muir is set to be just one of a number of realistic medal contenders in the women's freeski and snowboard programme, including the history-making 18-year-old snowboard world champion Mia Brookes, and snowboard star Katie Ormerod, who overcame a career-threatening injury to compete in Beijing.
'Seeing people like Katie come back and do better tricks gives you the motivation for how you can overcome injury and become even better,' Muir continued.
'People always said that the setbacks give you that extra drive to succeed and that's certainly something I'm discovering now.'
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