Canadians earn first Olympic ski jumping medal, winning mixed team bronze

Canada's Alexandria Loutitt, left, celebrates with teammates Matthew Soukup, Abigail Strate and Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes during the the venue ceremony after winning a bronze in the ski jumping mixed team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (Matthias Schrader/AP Photo)

Canada has captured its first ski jumping medal in Olympic history, taking bronze in the mixed team event on Monday at the Beijing Games.

Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes’ final jump sealed the bronze for Canada in an event making its Olympic debut.

Abigail Strate, Matthew Soukup and Alexandria Loutitt were Canada’s other jumpers.

“This medal for ski jumping in Canada kind of brings light to our sport and reminds people that our sport is real and there are Canadians who can be successful in it,” Loutitt said. “I was inspired by watching the Olympics and I can only imagine how inspiring it could be to see someone win a medal.”

Canada joins the United States in having won at least one medal across 14 Winter Olympic sports — the most among all National Olympic Committees.

All four of the Canadian ski jumpers are from Calgary.

Canada, with 844.6 points, edged Japan (836.3) for bronze.

The door to a potential medal opened for several countries when four-time reigning world champion Germany did not advance to the final after a disqualification for a suit violation.

Boyd-Clowes is competing in his fourth Olympics, while Strate, Soukup and Loutitt are Games rookies.

Slovenia won gold and the Russians took silver.

The Canadians train in Slovenia.

It was Canada’s sixth medal at the Beijing Olympics — one gold, one silver and four bronze.

Canada’s previous best result in Olympic ski jumping was Horst Bulau’s seventh-place finish in Calgary in 1988.

[relatedlinks]

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.